Marjaana Kurkinen

THE SPECTRE OF

THE ORIENT

Modern French Mime and

Traditional Japanese Theatre

in the 1930s

Dissertation Abstract

THE SPECTRE OF THE ORIENT

Modern French Mime and Traditional Japanese Theatre in the 1930s

Marjaana Kurkinen

University of Helsinki, FIN

The objective of the dissertation is to analyse the influence of the traditional Japanese

theatre forms in the development of modern mime in France in the 1930s. In the

scholarship on modern French mime, Oriental theatre - very often specified as Japanese

theatre - is frequently mentioned as an influence behind the development of this art form.

Yet, detailed analysis and exact references are rarely presented. This dissertation aims to

fill this gap. The analysis focuses on the work and theories of two Frenchmen, Étienne

Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault in the 1930s, which was the decade when they started to

renovate the art of mime. Their goal was to create a serious art form which would build on

a rigorous training method and conscious aesthetics.

The methods used in the study consist of archival research and applying the different

approaches of intercultural theatre research on the material. The potential influences were

searched from the theories, texts and performances of Decroux and Barrault in the 1930s.

Parallels with Eastern theatre theories were clearly found from their respective texts.

Decroux=s writings are compared with the writings of Zeami Motokiyo. In Barrault=s case,

the writings on the Japanese martial arts are used. The actual evidence of either of the

mimes having seen performances of Japanese theatre during the period concerned is

minimal, and, in Decroux=s case, the mime pieces that he developed do not show any clear

Japanese influences. Yet, Decroux=s role as a master teacher approaches the role of the

Japanese masters in various arts. In Barrault=s case, the influences are more discernible. He

ended up creating performances that in their use of mime as an integral and important part

of a performance strongly resemble the aesthetics of Japanese traditional theatre. The

French writer Paul Claudel=s contribution to Barrault=s development was considerable and

it is analysed as part of the study.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

I. SOURCES, KEY CONCEPTS AND RECENT SCHOLARSHIP 8

1.1. Mime, Pantomime or Dumb Show? 101.2. Oriental, Eastern and Japanese 181.3. From Oriental to Intercultural 21

II. THE 1930S: POLITICAL, PHYSICAL - AND MODERN 24

1. Political Extremes Steal the Word... 24

2. ... and the Physical Culture 27

3. The Era of the Unspoken 31

4. Modern French Mime as Part of Modernism 34

III. THE INTERCULTURAL ORIENT EXPRESS 38

1. Intercultural Theatre and Intercultural Theatre Research 38

1.1. The Pre-Expressive Model 401.2. The >Degreeable= or >Infiltration= Models 421.3. The >Misunderstanding= Models 451.4. Interculturalism in Historical Perspective 49

2. Japanese Theatrical Exchanges with the West 52

2.1. Between East and West 522.2. Japanese Theatre in France: from Woodblocks to Stage 55

2.2.1. The First Encounters 552.2.2. Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai 582.2.3. French performances à la Japonaise 61

IV. MODERN MIME 64

1. Theory and Techniques of Modern Mime 64

2. The Influence of the Vieux-Colombier on Modern Mime 76

2.1. The Formative Years at l=École and with les Copiaus 762.2. Kantan - the nÇ Play 80

3. The 1930s Texts on Modern Mime 90

3.1. Mime as a Remedy for Actor=s Art 903.2. The Secret Flower of Modern Mime 933.3. The Martial Art of Modern Mime 100

4. The Influences from l=Atelier andthe Collaboration in 1931-33 105

5. Decroux après Barrault:the Laboratory of Corporeal Mime 113

6. The Oriental in Contemporary Mime? 115

6.1. British Mime in the 1930s 1176.2. The Compositions of Angna Enters 1196.3. The Green Table of Kurt Jooss 122

7. Infiltration, Misunderstanding orReturn to the Pre-Expressive? 127

8. Barrault après Decroux: Towards Total Theatre 129

V. MIME IN TRADITIONAL JAPANESE THEATRE AND PARALLELS WITH MODERN MIME 131

1. Kabuki: mie and danmari 134

2. NÇ and KyÇgen: Technical Perfection in Silence 138

3. Bunraku: the Puppets= Influence on Acting 144

VI. 1930s LITERATURE AND EXPERIENCE ON JAPANESE TRADITIONAL THEATRE 151

1. Literature as a Source of Inspiration 151

2. Paul Claudel - un rapporteur par excellence 156

VII. JEAN-LOUIS BARRAULT=S PRODUCTIONS IN THE 1930s 164

1. Autour d=une mère 164

1.1. Eastern Esotericism via Antonin Artaud 1731.2. Les Cenci 1781.3. La Compagnie des Quinze: Le Viol de Lucrèce 183

2. Numance - Barrault=s Theatre of Cruelty 186

3. La Faim - Approaching Paul Claudel 191

4. The Serious Art of Subjective Mime 200

VIII. CONCLUSION 204

IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY 212

Appendix 1: A Brief History Mime and Pantomime:Tightroping between the Serious and the Grotesque

Appendix 2: Glossary of Japanese Terminology

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank

Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Emil Aaltosen säätiö, and the Ambassade de France en

Finlande (Service Culturel et Scientifique) for financial support for my research.

Professor Pirkko Koski (University of Helsinki) for supervising and commenting

my work and supporting my grant applications. Professor Marjatta Hietala

(University of Tampere) for encouragement and support for my grant

applications. Professor David Whitton (Lancaster University) and Professor Rein

Raud (University of Helsinki) for their valuable comments.

Ms. Marjatta Warén, MA, for revision of the French citations and for

contributing to the English language revision.

Professor Markku Kurkinen for being a challenging spirit for nearly a quarter of a

century, and all the other friends who have shared this project at its various

stages.

Especially, I wish to thank Maija Kontinen for her wide-ranging support and trust

and Leenamarja Thuring for love, encouragement and clear logical comments and

questions, which helped me greatly to formulate my arguments.

I dedicate this work to the memory of my father, Pentti Kontinen, who would

have been happy to see the project completed.

1

INTRODUCTION

This study analyses the possible influence of traditional Japanese theatre forms on

modern French mime in the 1930s. This decade is generally considered one of the

turning points in the history of mime, during which the remnants of 19th century

pantomime, dominated by the commedia dell'arte-derived Pierrot pantomime,

were superseded by modern mime based on total corporeal expression and

conscious analytical and theoretical approach. The main stage of the development

was in France and the work of Étienne Decroux (1898-1991) and Jean-Louis

Barrault (1910-1994) is generally considered of central importance.

There were several reasons behind the development. Both 19th century French

pantomime tradition and the theatrical renovation movement in France during the

1910s and 1920s, as well as modernism in arts contributed to the birth of modern

French mime. Also AOriental theatre@ is often mentioned as an inspiration behind

the renovation of mime1 but, unlike in case of other influences, there is not much

elaboration nor detailed scholarship on the topic. This study aims to fill this gap.

With theoretical tools of intercultural theatre research, this study deciphers what

exactly were the AOriental@ elements that modern French mime in general and the

work of Decroux and Barrault in particular, absorbed in the 1930s. Both the

theories and the practical work of these two individuals are analysed in order to

locate the possible impact of the AOriental@. The task involves the question of

how much knowledge of AOriental theatre@ forms these two Frenchmen had or

could have had during the period concerned and through which channels it could

have reached them. Neither Decroux nor Barrault visited the AOrient@ during the

decade. Thus information on the visits of AOriental theatre@ companies to France,

available literature on the topic, and contacts with persons familiar with AOriental

1 For example: Lust 1974, 20; Felner 1985, 79; Leabhart 1989; 64 and Leabhart

1997,3; Wylie 1993, 111 and Wylie 1994, 179; de Marinis 1980, 20 and 24; Barba 1997, 9 and 11. There is more about these scholars= contribution to the history of mime in Chapter I.

2

theatre@ traditions is important.

The basic question evokes further questions on whether tapping the AOriental@

sources was common among other representatives of 1930s mime than Decroux

and Barrault, and whether the AOriental@ was more evident in their mime than in

those contemporary French theatre productions which aspired for expression that

defied the dominance of word in the theatre and wished to keep its status on an

equal level with the other elements of a performance.

Obviously, AOrientalism@ is an abstract and controversial concept, and AOriental

theatre@, with its multiple and varied performance traditions, a far too large and

vague point of reference for a study of this scale. These concepts will be further

clarified in the course of this study but in order to make the problematics

tangible, I have restricted "Oriental theatre" to the Japanese traditional theatre,

very much for the reason that the scholars actually refer to traditional Japanese

theatre forms as the influence behind modern French mime more often than they

refer to the other AOriental theatre@ forms.2 As will be seen, there is also evidence

that information on the Japanese traditional theatre forms, namely nÇgaku (= nÇ

and kyÇgen), kabuki, and bunraku, was available in France prior and during the

period in focus in this study.

When trying to trace the AOriental@, in this case the Japanese traditional theatre=s

impact on the development of modern mime we are, of course, moving in the

difficult area of interculturalism and its importance or irrelevance for the

development of theatre. Additional problematics can be added by questioning

whether the possible Japanese influences that the scholars seem to sense in the

work of Decroux and Barrault filtered into their art already in the 1930s or later

in their careers. When tracing the Spectre of the Orient from modern French

mime, one could basically choose to look at their long careers, which both lasted

2 Especially, de Marinis 1980, 20 and Wylie 1993, 111-112 and Wylie 1994, 179.

3

until the beginning of the 1990s.

The collaboration between Étienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault for the

development of modern mime took place in a fairly short period of time, i.e. in

1931-33. Decroux had started the work on his own already at the end of the

1920s, and after 1933, he continued on the same course, eventually establishing

his own mime school and mime company in 1940. From 1935 on, Barrault

launched his own career with three strongly physical theatre productions which

made extensive use of the techniques of modern mime. Autour d=une mère

(1935), Numance (1937) and La Faim (1939), laid the foundation for his future

eminence in the French theatre. In Decroux's and Barrault's work, we can

actually see two distinctive trends of modern mime: mime as an independent art

form and mime as an important part of a theatrical production.

Both Decroux's and Barrault's work is deeply rooted in the French theatrical

renovation of the 1910s and 1920s, which started from Jacques Copeau's

manifesto for dramatic renovation in La Nouvelle Revue Française in 1913, and

the subsequent establishment of le Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier. The work was

later continued and expanded by the animateurs of the Cartel des Quatre,

Charles Dullin, Louis Jouvet, Georges Pitoëff, and Gaston Baty, as well as

several other individuals who had worked and studied with Copeau, especially

those who, in 1931, formed the Compagnie des Quinze under the direction of

Michel Saint-Denis. Étienne Decroux studied briefly at l=École du Vieux-

Colombier in the 1920s, performed with Baty's and Jouvet's companies, and was

until 1934 a member of Dullin's company at the Théâtre de l'Atelier. Jean-Louis

Barrault, for his part, started his apprenticeship at Dullin's company in 1931, and

it was at l'Atelier where their joint experimentation for the development of mime

took place.

There are several reasons to focus in the 1930s in this study. It was the decade

when Decroux and Barrault created the theory and practice of modern mime, and

4

chose the paths that they would follow for the rest of their respective careers.

Also, many of the references to the Japanese influence that scholars have made,

seem to indicate that this influence was there at an early stage.

One reason for restricting the treatment to the 1930s is that the following decade

opened yet another chapter in the history of mime. The first years of the 1940s

brought in a certain regression to 19th century pantomime. The epitome of the

new decade was the immensely popular film Les Enfants du paradis (1945)3, a

romanticised story directed by Marcel Carné about Jean-Gaspard Deburau, the

legendary creator of the 19th century Pierrot pantomime. Especially Barrault

who played the role of Deburau, contributed crucially to the film, but also

Decroux was involved in the role of Deburau's father.

It was probably the popularity of Les Enfants du paradis that caused Barrault,

who by then had otherwise completely moved to 'regular' theatre productions, to

create two Pierrot-Harlequin-themed mimes in the mid-1940s (Baptiste 1946 and

La Fontaine de Jouvence in 1947) in which Marcel Marceau, a student from

Decroux's school, was introduced in the role of Harlequin. Marceau, naturally,

has become a virtual synonym for mime from the 1950s on, combining the

techniques of modern mime with the romanticism and certain naivety of 19th

century pantomime. Decroux who steadfastly continued on his own course as a

teacher and polemist never gained such popularity with his performances and, in

spite of his long career, remained relatively unknown to the general audience.

However, his work has always ranked high in peer reviews and after the war it

inspired Gordon Graig to exclaim that in Decroux's art Western theatre had

eventually reached the ideal of the Über-marionette, Craig=s ideal actor. This

happened after a special evening of mime in Paris on June 27th 19454.

3 The film was made in 1942 but, due to the war, found wider distribution in 1945.

4 This event was hosted by Jean Dorcy. Both Decroux and Barrault performed in it with Decroux=s students and Elian Guyon.

5

The opening of Decroux's École du Mime in 1940, the film Les Enfants du

paradis, and the increased interest in mime during the post-war years can be seen

as the fruit of the intense ground work of the previous decade. It can also be

added that the 1930s is interesting as an extremely polarised decade during which

the deep mistrust in the objectivity of verbal expression was marked. As will be

seen, this provides some links not only to the popularity of mime but also to the

appeal of the Japanese and other Eastern cultures.

The 1930s also offers several valuable points of reference both in the field of

mime as an independent art and in mime which was used as part of theatre

performances. The 1930s was a decade when mime, distinctly different from 19th

century pantomime, was popular and practised by also other performers than

Decroux and Barrault. The shows of the American mime Angna Enters and the

works of the representatives of the British mime movement serve as examples in

the category of independent mime, and the achievements of la Compagnie des

Quinze in the early 1930s in the category of mime as a part of theatrical

performances. Antonin Artaud=s controversial Les Cenci (1935) is another

example of the strongly physical theatre of the time. Modern dance and dance

theatre, which blossomed and continued to develop during the same period,

should not be ignored either. The German dancer and choreographer Kurt Jooss'

work, especially his widely-performed Der Grüne Tisch (1932), serves as an

interesting point of comparison in this area.

The fact that all these 1930s performers, not only Decroux and Barrault, were

active in mime that sought to distance itself from 19th century pantomime,

remains an under-researched area in the history of modern mime. Their

contribution deserves a study of its own. The reason for including a brief look at

the work of Enters, the British mimes, la Compagnie des Quinze, Artaud, and

Jooss in this study, is to examine whether any influences of traditional Japanese

theatre are discernible in their enterprises. Was there possibly a trend of

AOrientalism@ behind all these performers= work or were Decroux and Barrault

6

the only ones who, possibly, absorbed AOriental@ elements in their performances?

Could this assumed AOriental@ influence have separated the work of Decroux and

Barrault from the work of their contemporaries and contributed to its durability?

There is yet another area that has been neglected in the scholarship on modern

French mime, namely the mime literature that was written during the first

decades of 20th century. Examples of breaking from 19th century tradition and

searching the concept of new mime can be found in the French and Anglo-

American books published either before or at the same time as Decroux and

Barrault worked on their theories. Such works as Charles Aubert=s L=Art

mimique. Suivi d=un traité de la pantomime et du ballet (1901) or the American

Elise J. Harwood=s How We Train the Body: the Mechanics of Pantomime

Technique (1933), and the numerous books written by the British mimes in the

1930s, are some examples. Again, these works could be studied from several

angles. In this study, these works are examined mainly through the question on

the possible AOriental@ influences in them, and evaluated as possible sources of

inspiration for Decroux and Barrault.

The main contribution of this study to the research on modern French mime is the

systematic search for the AOriental@ elements in the work of Étienne Decroux and

Jean-Louis Barrault in the 1930s, and an attempt to clarify how those elements

might have found their way in their art and theories. An attempt to incorporate

different methods of Atheatrical interculturalism@ is an approach that has not been

tried in this field of research before. Another contribution is the examination of

Decroux=s and Barrault=s early work in the context of other contemporary mime

and theoretical writings on mime. Decroux=s and Barrault=s work is often seen as

the only epitome of modern mime during the period, but it is evident that there

were also other theorists and performers who searched for new mime in their

respective productions.

The work proceeds from the definitions of Amodern mime@, AOriental theatre@ and

7

Atheatrical interculturalism@ (Chapter I) to a brief look on the historical and

ideological background for the period concerned (Chapter II). The central

theoretical framework which will be applied in the study, namely the different

theories of Atheatrical interculturalism@ and AOrientalism@, and an overview of the

actual performances of traditional Japanese theatre in France before and during

the 1930s are presented in Chapter III. The influences on and the actual theory

and practice of modern French mime mirrored by the contemporary mime are

covered in Chapter IV. The search for links to traditional Japanese theatre starts

in this chapter, proceeding from the influence of Jacques Copeau and Charles

Dullin to a more speculative level, namely to the parallels of Decroux=s and

Barrault=s writings with the theories of Zeami Motokiyo and the principles of

Japanese martial arts as represented in the writings of Deshimaru Taisen.

Further connections between modern French mime and mime in traditional

Japanese theatre forms, are explored in Chapter V, and the literature on Japanese

theatre that might have influenced or inspired Decroux, Barrault and their

contemporaries will be presented in Chapter VI. Chapter VII concentrates on

mime as a part of theatre performances. The focus is on Jean-Louis Barrault=s

three productions in the 1930s which, as performances, were actually closer to

total theatre of traditional Japanese theatre forms than Decroux=s pure mime was.

This chapter will also introduce parallels with the contemporary physical theatre

and, especially, Antonin Artaud=s and Paul Claudel=s influence on Barrault.

8

I. SOURCES, KEY CONCEPTS AND RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

The primary source materials of this study consist of published texts,

autobiographies, and memoirs written by Étienne Decroux and Jean-Louis

Barrault, as well as their published interviews. Similar materials have been used

to illuminate the work of their contemporaries.

Étienne Decroux, often called "the father of modern mime", devoted his entire

life for developing his theories on mime as an autonomous art and for teaching

mime, not only in France but in several other countries, especially in the United

States5. Considering Decroux's status as a mime theoretician, a lot more has been

written about him than what he has written himself. A collection of his writings,

Paroles sur le mime, was first published in 19636, two decades after he had

founded his mime school in Paris in 1940 - and four decades after he had gotten

inspired by corporeal expression at the École du Vieux-Colombier. Paroles sur le

mime contains some of Decroux=s articles from the 1930s but most of its material

results from his later elaborations. Starting from the 1940s, he willingly gave

interviews, and there are also published notes that his students have taken on his

lectures.7

There are no texts from the 1930s in which Jean-Louis Barrault would have

expressed his ideas about mime or theatre. Even later, Barrault never admitted a

desire to build systems, in spite of the fact that he wrote articles and gave

interviews in which he expressed his theoretical or philosophical visions on mime.

Many of these texts are memoirs which potentially reflect his views back in the

5 For more detailed information, see Dorcy 1961, 75-76.

6 The second enlarged edition was published in 1977.

7 I have not interviewed Decroux who died in 1991. For the background information, I have interviewed a Finnish performer, Ms. Riitta Pasanen who studied with Decroux for two years in 1983-85. Thomas Leabhart's interviews are, naturally, most valuable sources.

9

1930s.

The most concise presentation of Barrault's theories is included in chapters

"Éducation Première" and "Essai pour un petit traité d'alchimie théâtrale" in his

Réflexions sur le théâtre from 1949. There is also a section, "Alchimie du corps

humain", in his Souvenirs pour demain, published in 1972, which is a condensed

version of "Essai pour un petit traité d'alchimie théâtrale".

Manuscripts, newspaper reviews, articles, photographic materials and hand

programmes stored at the Auguste Rondel and Gustave Fréjaville collections of

the Bibliothéque de l=Arsénal, Paris, have been the main archival materials

consulted. A considerable part of this material has been used also by other

scholars of modern French mime and French theatre. However, the hand

programme of Étienne Decroux=s performance at the World Exhibition in Paris in

1937 has not, to my knowledge, been referred to earlier. The Rondel collection

was also a valuable source for materials on the visit of the Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai

group in Paris in 1930.

For the sections on modern dance and mime, especially the work of Angna

Enters and Kurt Jooss, the hand programmes and newspaper reviews stored at

the William Seymour Collection at Princeton University Library have been most

useful. The Dance Collections and the Billy Rose Theatre Collection of the New

York Public Library have also provided plenty of interesting primary material -

most of which could not, however, be included in this study because they were

not relevant to the core questions. Copies of the 1930s British publication, The

Mime Review, were first encountered in the collections of the British Library, but

copies of it can also be found from the Billy Rose Theatre Collection. The

collections of the British Library were an important source for the secondary

materials on the history of mime and pantomime. The copy of How We Train the

Body: the Mechanics of Pantomime Technique by Elise J. Harwood was an

interesting discovery from the Teachers= College Library at the Columbia

10

University, as were some other publications related to the physical education

during the period concerned.

Of filmed and videotaped materials, Marcel Carné=s film Les Enfants du paradis

(1945)8 is a virtual showcase for Jean-Louis Barrault=s mime skills, although in

this film, modern mime has to be read through the revival of 19th century

pantomime. Decroux=s role in Les Enfants du paradis is more marginal, and

unfortunately, I have not had an opportunity to see any other films of Decroux=s

performances. A videotape, produced by the Odin Teatret, in which Decroux=s

student, Yves Lebreton, shows Decrouvian training methods9 has been very

illuminating, and for the background information, I have also interviewed yet

another student of Decroux=s, Ms. Riitta Pasanen10.

As far as the secondary sources are concerned, there are three major areas that

are essential for this study, namely, research on modern mime, literature on

Japanese traditional theatre forms, and theoretical writings on AOrientalism@ and

Atheatrical interculturalism@. Research on history of mime and pantomime,

modern dance, non-verbal expression, as well as modernism and theatre in the

1930s in general, are also relevant and have been used in appropriate contexts.

1.1. Mime, Pantomime or Dumb Show?

Definition of the concepts 'mime' and/or 'pantomime' and their difference could

easily form a topic of an entire study. There is a lot of confusion and ambivalence

8 Carné, Les Enfants du paradis, S.N. Pathé Cinéma 1945.

9 Odin Teatret and Yves Lebreton, Corporeal Mime (no date).

10 Interview 26.2.1992.

11

in the usage11. For example, British English, American English and French have

their own conventions for using the two terms. British English reserves

'pantomime' solely for the specific Christmas entertainment. American English

and French use both terms interchangeably. In all these languages, the words can

refer to a theatrical genre, a performer or a play.12

'Mime' is the preferred term in the current English and French scholarship13. It is

a general term which can be used to refer to the past and present exponents of

the art, even if the mime that emerged from Decroux=s and Barrault=s

experiments in the 1930s, is often specified as >modern mime=. Scholars writing

on their work often describe it as the first, conscious exponent of 'modern mime'

which covers all 20th century mime, at least until the emergence of 'post-modern

mime'.

The terms 'pantomime' and 'dumb show' usually refer to the mime of certain

historical periods, but because individual performers often use these terms,

especially this applies to >pantomime=, to express their own aesthetic ideas and to

describe their art, they cannot be eliminated from the modern usage either.14 In

mime, connection between the performer and the art form is strong and the mime

is often the sole creator and performer of the piece. Thus each performer tends to

have his/her own definitions, theories and preferences - which, subsequently,

11 The history is usually traced back to the ancient Greek and Roman theatre forms,

mimos and pantomimus. This history will be touched upon briefly in Appendix 1.

12 'Mimodrama' or 'mime play' are sometimes used for productions requiring several performers.

13 This is evident in the titles of some major works of the 1980s and the 1990s, such as Felner's Apostles of Silence. The Modern French Mimes; Leabhart's Modern and Post- modern Mime, Pavis's L'Analyse des spectacles. Théâtre, mime, cinéma. An example on Italian is de Marinis's Mimo et mimi.

14 It has been said that Decroux and Barrault were the first practioners of modern mime to attempt to differentiate between the terms 'mime' and 'pantomime' (Alberts 1989,5). Another example, although not a very common one, is to use 'mime' to indicate the performer and 'pantomime' the art itself (Hunt-Hunt 1964, 8).

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affect the language of scholars.

Further confusion emerges from the specifications often added to both terms.

20th century mime literature is full of such concepts as 'mime corporel', 'mime

pure', 'pantomime blanche', 'mime statuaire', 'mime de la fin', 'subjective mime',

'objective mime', which will be clarified in the course of this study.

In this study, 'mime' is used as a general term in order to avoid the confusion

caused by the restricted use of the term >pantomime= in British English, and also

because 'mime' is used more consistently than >pantomime= in the current

theoretical writings published in English and French. Another reason for adopting

the term >mime= is that Étienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault, whose work

this study focuses in, used the term 'mime' to characterise their own work.

There will be further elaboration on the terminology later in this study. At this

stage, 'mime' is defined as a genre in performing arts in which speech (dialogue or

monologue of the actor(s)) is abolished or clearly subordinated to other

performance elements. Mime is a genre that relies principally on the corporeal

expression of the performer(s) to communicate the message. Mime can either be

an independent show or combined to another performance. The word 'mime' can

refer to performer, performance or to a theatrical genre. Terms 'pantomime' and

'dumb show' are used mainly in the historical references, and in cases when

authors have chosen it as a contrasting term for 'mime'.

Mimes themselves have written a considerable amount of mime manuals. Most of

these books are not included in this study - unless, of course, they were published

immediately before or during the period concerned. It is, however, interesting

how much of also the academically-oriented mime literature is written by

individuals who are actively involved in performing and/or teaching mime. As if

there would be a constant search for justification for this art form!

13

As far as Anglo-American mime literature is concerned, Bari Rolfe's work can be

mentioned, mainly because she has compiled a collection on annotated texts

related to the history of mime, Mimes on Miming15. Even if the book is sketchy,

it gives a solid account on the history of mime as expressed by mimes and mime

afficionados, and anticipates the more profound literature of the 1980s and

1990s.

The 1980s brought studies on the birth and aesthetics of the work of Decroux

and Barrault. In 1985, Mira Felner published her Apostles of Silence16, a

presentation of the theories and practices of Decroux, Barrault, Marcel Marceau

and Jacques Lecoq17, i.e. the time covered reaches from 1910 to the early 1980s.

Connecting the theories of these four French mimes to larger cultural context of

modernism, is a truly valuable contribution, even if Felner's discussion of

modernism is based on very few references. Her chapter on Barrault's early

productions is thoroughly researched and serves a good sounding board for my

research, in which I have used much of the same archive materials.

Methodologically, Felner relies on archival research and interviews which she

transforms into description and analysis. One of her informants is Jean Dorcy,

who was a teacher at the Vieux-Colombier School and who has himself written

reminiscences and comments on the development of modern mime in A la

rencontre de mime et des mimes, published in 1958.18 In spite of the fragmentary

and not particularly analytical nature of Dorcy's sketches, the book offers a

valuable insight in the times of the birth of modern French mime, and also to the

15 Rolfe 1981/1979.

16 Felner 1985.

17 Lecoq is Felner's own teacher and it is not thus surprising that the chapter on Lecoq is basically a summary of his theories and affirmation of their superiority compared to the theories of the other mimes.

18 Felner actually refers more to Dorcy's published texts than to the interviews conducted in 1972, which provide only marginal information.

14

work of some of Decroux's and Barrault's contemporaries in the 1930s.

Thomas Leabhart's Modern and Post-modern Mime19 is in many ways an

interesting, well-informed, and intuitive contribution to the history of modern

mime but, at the same time, full of sweeping generalisations and undocumented

statements20, which makes it slightly difficult to refer to. The book is partially an

attempt at an academic work, partially an affirmation of Leabhart=s views on

mime. Solid theoretical constructions do not interest Leabhart. Modern and Post-

modern Mime is of the nature of a historical chronicle, taking a lot for granted

and leaving a lot of intriguing questions and tracks unfollowed21 Leabhart is a

performing mime himself and, as a devout student of Decroux, has done a lot to

preserve his heritage in his own articles and interviews22. Interestingly, a fair

amount of Decroux's purism seems to have absorbed also into his writing. Such

is the zealousness of the students of Decroux that one is let to understand that

writing or doing research on Decroux=s art without having first-hand experience

on his mime, disqualifies the scholar althogether.23

Another mime turned academic, and a fervent Decrouvian, is David Alberts who

in his dissertation, A Critical Analysis of the Historical and Theoretical Issues of

19 Leabhart 1989.

20 For example, when writing about Copeau's Vieux-Colombier school and nÇ theatre's influence on Decroux, Leabhart states that 'when he (Decroux) took over the school of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan from Jacques Lecoq, he confided to Lecoq that he hoped to make the students there move like Japanese actors' (Leabhart 1989, 31-32). However, there is no reference on an interview or a written document here.

21 For example, when Leabhart writes about the influence of Arthur Waley's The nÇ plays of Japan on Copeau saying that 'information such as this can only have confirmed Copeau's own convictions' (Leabhart 1989, 21), the reader is let to understand that Waley's book, which was published in 1921, would have affected Copeau's concept of tréteau nu which he launched already in 1909.

22 Most of the interviews are published in The Mime Journal which has been edited by Leabhart since 1974.

23 An example of this is Leabhart=s criticism of Felner who never studied with Decroux nor interviewed him in person (Leabhart 1989, 54).

15

Modern Mime24, aims to prove what an absolutely unique concept Decroux's

modern mime is. Alberts goes through the history of mime on basis of the

occurrence of the word mimos, or as he calls it, mimic theatre. These

performances, of course, include a whole range of mostly farcical performances,

which were not silent or speechless theatre. Eventually, Alberts piles all pre-

Decrouvian forms of mime under the concept Historical Mime and reserves the

concept Modern Mime for Decroux's art. It is interesting that Alberts manages to

keep the history of dance completely separated from the history of mime. While

keeping diligently track on all theatre forms with the word 'mime', he completely

ignores ballet pantomime and modern dance theatre.

Compared to the above-mentioned works, Kathryn Wylie's Satyric and Heroic

Mimes. Attitude as the Way of the Mime in Ritual and Beyond.25 is of its own

class. Surely, Wylie takes the same broad approach to mime as Alberts, actually

going even further back in its history, to primitive rituals from which she traces

two major lines in the history of mime, the satyric and the shamanistic. She too

has to define her colours in relation to Decrouvian and non-Decrouvian,

predominantly Lecoqian mime, and is clearly affiliated with the Decrouvian

camp. Thus it is not surprising that she sees Lecoqian mime belonging to the

satyric tradition and Decrouvian mime as an epitome of the more profound

shamanistic tradition. Especially interesting, from the point of view of this study,

are the connections that Wylie makes between the aesthetics of nÇ theatre and

Decroux's concepts. Wylie's insights are well-formulated and very much in

alignment with my original intuition and further elaborations.

It is not only the trend of the sacred and the profane, the shamanistic and the

satyrical in mime that makes Wylie's work intriguing. Also her analysis of the

concept of >attitude=, which is central in Decroux's theoretical constructions, is

24 Alberts 1992. Alberts' work is not published as a book but as a facsimile by University of Michigan Dissertation Information Services.

25 Wylie 1996.

16

most insightful. Perhaps it is not unexpected that Wylie does not write a separate

conclusion to her book, but lets the chapter on Decroux culminate the work.

Modernism and post-modernism are essential theoretical frameworks for Felner

and Leabhart, who both wish to find a place for modern French mime in this

context. Interestingly, Alberts and Wylie do not show much interest in

modernism. Furthermore, both Alberts' and Wylie's works represent a trend

which does not consider silence or lack of speech as an important denominator

for mime. It is clear that both Alberts and Wylie see mime as actor's theatre, in

which the skill for sublime physical expression is a prerequisite. The definition

being as wide as that, one is actually tempted to ask whether the word 'mime'

could not be replaced by the word 'theatre', or that perhaps the word 'theatre'

itself should be divided into 'mime' and 'spectacle', the latter comprising the

forms in which other theatrical elements are equal or more dominant than the

actor's verbal and physical expression?

Research on modern French mime is dominated by U.S. scholars, possibly

because of an easier access to the academic publishing channels, but also because

of the corps of Decroux's students in the United States. The U.S. scholarship on

modern mime is often self-referential and, for example, French and Italian

scholarship on mime is sparcely referred to in it. Unlike French and Italian

scholars, U.S. mime researchers hardly apply such methods as semiotics on their

material. Semiotic approaches do not show even in the work published in the

1980s when semiotics were popular in theatre research. The paradigms of the

U.S. research on modern mime have been Bakhtinian carnivalism, shamanism or

examining modern French mime as a part of modernism.

Of French mime literature, Le théâtre du geste: mimes et acteurs26, edited by

Jacques Lecoq, has its definite value as a collection of essays and interviews on

26 Lecoq 1989.

17

mime, physical acting and visual theatre from their earliest days to the 1980s. The

theoretical level of these articles varies, practically all forms of non-verbal theatre

are touched upon, and the illustrations are exemplary. For this study, Yasu

Ohashi's article on gesture in Japanese theatre has been valuable. In this article,

Ohashi provides interesting comments on the use of gesture and mimed

expression in traditional Japanese theatre forms.

More theoretical insights can be found from Patrice Pavis27 who contributes to

mime research in several articles. Especially inspiring are his observations on the

semiotics of the body in mime. In Italy, the highly analytical work of Marco de

Marinis has been most inspiring and the collection edited by him, Mimo e mimi.

Parole e immagini per un genere teatrale del Novecento 28 has been useful for

this study since its articles aim to clarify not only the history of modern mime but

also the varied and very often inconsistent theoretical concepts used by Decroux

and Barrault.

Neither U.S. nor European scholarship deals systematically with the possible

impact of AOriental@ or, more specifically, Japanese theatre forms on modern

French mime. References to the similarities are made and, especially in Wylie=s

work, clear parallels drawn, but they are not seen as a possible result of

conscious appropriation or unconscious infiltration. The development of modern

mime is also often seen as a fairly insular French phenomenon even if, as pointed

out earlier, there were performers and theoreticians in search of new mime also in

other countries. The work of Angna Enters and the British mimes, for example, is

rarely, if at all, mentioned in the history of modern mime of the 1930s. Barrault=s

productions are given attention, but many scholars - especially the ones with

strong Decrouvian background - seem to feel slightly uncomfortable with

including them in the history of modern French mime. The other contemporary

27 Pavis 1982, 1996a.

28 de Marinis, 1980.

18

performances which used mime as an important element in theatre are not given

particular attention either. By including these areas as points of reference for

Decroux=s and Barrault=s early work, this study aims to bring new perspectives to

the history of modern French mime.

1.2. Oriental, Eastern and Japanese

There are several reasons to study modern French mime in the light of Japanese

theatre in particular. Firstly, traditional Japanese theatre is invariably mentioned

as an inspiration for modern mime, more often than any other AOriental@ theatre

form. Secondly, the study deals mainly with France where traditional Japanese

theatre was the AOriental@ theatre form with the most solid visit and research

tradition. As will be seen in Chapter II, the Cambodian or Balinese dancers or

occasional Indian performers who could be seen in Paris during the 1930s and

the decades preceeding it, were more marginal than the visits of Japanese

performers and theatre groups.

Thirdly, there are published studies on Japanese influence on French theatre in

general, giving valuable background for the study of Japanese influence on mime

in particular. And finally, however varied Eastern performing and training

traditions are, they contain some common features which the Western theatre

practioners and audiences tend to find particularly intriguing. Notably, the

"totality" of theatre, i.e. the fact that performances combine physical, visual,

auditive, and verbal elements in equal proportions, the anti-naturalistic stylisation

- or, the ultimate realism - in the expression, and the emphasis on the art of the

actor. In this respect, traditional Japanese theatre can stand as an example of

AOriental@ theatre. The traditional Japanese theatre forms discussed in this work

are nÇgaku (= nÇ and kyÇgen), kabuki and bunraku.

19

General definition of these forms is not particularly difficult29. It is far more

difficult to define exactly what was meant by AOriental theatre@ in the Western

industrialised countries during the first decades of twentieth century and in the

1930s in particular. The whole range of Eastern or Asian theatre forms was by no

means known to Western performers and audiences of the day. It was not

uncommon to align >Oriental= with >primitive= or any kind of exotic, not typically

Western theatre. Music hall extravaganzas and even the Russian Ballet's early

performances with their dreamlike, primitive, exotic and sensual scenes30 could

be seen as examples of AOriental theatre@.

The concept of >Oriental= and its multiple and controversial readings will be

returned to in more detail in the discussion on intercultural theatre. In this study,

'Oriental theatre' refers to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South-East Asian and

Indian theatre and, more specifically, the traditional theatre forms in these

countries. 'Asian theatre' would also be a possible choice for a term, but in that

case, also Central Asian theatre should be included. 'Far-Eastern' would be a

justified term because French writers frequently use its equivalent, 'Extrême-

Orient'. 'Oriental' is, nevertheless, used in the English language literature more

often.

'Eastern theatre' is another wide concept which occurs in literature, especially

when contrast with 'Western theatre' is emphasised. Especially after the heavy

criticism on Western attitudes towards the >Oriental= as Athe Other@, it seems that

'Eastern' has become a more politically correct concept, which has the same

geographical meaning but without post-colonial connotations. It can also more

easily than 'Oriental' be used to cover also modern theatre in the area in question.

When 'Oriental theatre' is used it is increasingly often paired with 'Occidental

theatre', not with 'Western theatre=. Both 'Occidental' and 'Western' theatre refer

29 Please see Appendix 2.

30 Bablet 1975, 35.

20

to the theatre of industrialised European and North American countries

(Australia can also be included). Curiously enough, both of these terms seem to

be equally sufficient when different periods of 'Western' or 'Occidental' theatre

are discussed, i.e. the term 'Occidental' does not seem to pair with >traditional= as

much as the term 'Oriental' does.

In this work, I shall use both >Eastern= and >Oriental= and their counterparts

>Western= and >Occidental=, since neither of these term pairs has gained absolute

priority over the other in scholarship and in other literature.

Scholarship on the Japanese traditional theatre forms, nÇ, kyÇgen, kabuki, and

bunraku is plentiful, although only a part of it is available in Western languages.

The French literature on traditional Japanese theatre that was published before or

during the 1930s, is treated mostly as primary source material, i.e. as an element

that could have influenced the work of Decroux and Barrault. Part of this

literature has references also to Zeami=s writings. However, in the section that

seeks parallels with Decroux=s and Zeami=s theories, I have used three later

translations which all contain introductions to and commentaries about nÇgaku,

namely René Sieffert=s La tradition secrète du nô. Suivi de Une journée de nô;

Sekine Masaru=s Ze-ami and his Theories of Noh Drama; and J. Thomas Rimer=s

and Yamazaki Masakazu=s On the Art of the NÇ Drama. The Major Treatises of

Zeami.

Inoura Yoshinobu=s and Kawatake Toshio=s The Traditional Theater of Japan

and Benito Ortolani=s Japanese Theatre. From Shamanistic Ritual to

Contemporary Pluralism have been used as concise presentations on traditional

Japanese theatre forms.

21

1.3. From Oriental to Intercultural

The literature that concentrates on the influence of traditional Japanese theatre

on Western theatre - and vice versa - is not necessarily very extensive but

includes some very informative works. Leonard Pronko=s Theater East and West.

Perspectives toward a Total Theater.31 is one of the first explorations in this area.

Shionoya Kei=s Cyrano et les samuraï . Le théâtre japonais en France et l'effet

de retour (1986) offers a valuable overview on the visits of Japanese performers

to France during the first decades of this century and the reverse influences from

France to Japan. Christina Nygren=s Möte mellan Öst och Väst. Metafor och

konvention i en japansk shingeki-föreställning (1993) can also be mentioned,

even if it deals only with influences of Western theatre on the Japanese theatre

form, shingeki. All these works provide useful background material on the

exchanges between Japanese and Western theatre and drama.

All the above-mentioned works deal with what is currently referred as

>interculturalism= in the theatre or >theatrical interculturalism=, but are by no

means the latest exponents in the area. Since this study focuses on the possible

influence of traditional Japanese theatre on the emergence of modern mime in

France, it is logical to search theoretical framework from the discourse and

elaborations on interculturalism in the theatre, which emerged at the end of the

1980s and gained further popularity during the 1990s. In a way, interculturalism

can be seen as continuation and elaboration of an older trend of >Orientalism=.

The concept of 'Orientalism' is full of controversies. In a sense, it can be used to

refer to all forms of interest that Western art and scholarship held towards

Middle and Far Eastern cultures. This interest generally led either to romantic

31 Pronko 1967. Interestingly, Thomas Leabhart mentions his discussions with Pronko (a colleague at Pomona College) while preparing his Modern and Post-modern mime (Leabhart 1989, xii). Leabhart does not refer to Pronko's work, though.

22

idealisation of the >Oriental= or to an affirmation of the superiority of Western

culture. A classic work analysing the trend is Edward Said's Orientalism.

Western Conceptions of the Orient32.

The terms 'intercultural theatre' or 'theatrical interculturalism' are not without

problems either, and among scholars there is healthy resistance to promoting a

new theatrical genre per se.

- - it might be more productive to speak of intercultural exchanges within theatre

practice rather than of the constitution of a new genre emerging from the synthesis of

heterogenous traditions.33

As a working definition, we can say that 'intercultural theatre' refers to theatrical

performances which include a varying amount of contents and techniques from

theatre of other cultural areas distinctly different than the area in question.

>Theatrical interculturalism= is a general term which refers to the corpus of such

performances as a trend, if not as a genre. >Intercultural theatre research=, for its

part, is concerned with the processes and outcome of >theatrical interculturalism=.

Said's criticism is just one element that has alerted Western scholars to a more

nuanced approach towards the Orient and its influence in Western culture - and

vice versa. Interculturalism is a more politically correct approach than

Orientalism and, supposedly, takes into account the flows from one culture to

another. However, it would be too hasty to conclude that Western desire to

exploit Oriental and >exotic= theatre traditions would have totally disappeared as,

for example, the polemics around Peter Brook's Mahabharata or Ariadne

Mnouchkine's productions shows. The scholars, for their part, have attempted to

grasp the flows and the controversies with increasingly sophisticated approaches.

32 Said 1978/1991. Said=s argumentation will be dealt with more detail in Chapter III.

33 Pavis 1996, 1.

23

The works of, for example, Patrice Pavis and Erica Fischer-Lichte34 serve as

good examples and have been most useful for framing the theoretical approaches

which will be presented in Chapter III.

34 Fischer-Lichte 1990, Pavis 1996a, Pavis 1996b. These anthologies contain articles

from both of these authors and other contributors.

24

II. THE 1930s: POLITICAL, PHYSICAL - AND MODERN

1. Political Extremes steal the Word...

The 1930s was a charged and polarised decade, starting with the economic

recession and ending with World War II. Ideologically and politically, the 1930s

can be called a decade of extremes. In France, it was a period of heavy inflation,

political scandals, and tension at the workplaces. The conservative governments

were briefly superseded by socialists= and communists= Front Populaire in 1936-

37. Somber undertones were added through developments in the neighbouring

countries: in Germany, National Socialist Party came to power in January 1933,

Italy succumbed to Mussolini=s fascists, and in Spain, the Civil War of 1936-39

ended in the falangist victory.

From perspective of intercultural influences and exchanges, the strongly

nationalistic 1930s does not, at first sight, seem the most relevant decade of 20th

century. In spite of the nationalistic trend, it should nevertheless be remembered

that, in France, the anti-fascist groups that were active in the Front Populaire

were resolutely international. Paris was also the centre for French cultural avant-

garde and one of the cultural capitals of the world35, where intellectuals from

many totalitarian countries sought refuge. The undisputable international status

of the city was further enhanced by major exhibitions, such as Colonial Exhibition

in 1931 and World Exhibition in 1937. The first one brought to the city, among

other attractions, the group of Balinese dancers which so profoundly affected

Antonin Artaud. The second one gave, among other attractions, a possibility for

both French and foreign experimental theatre and dance companies to present

35 Other centres of modern art had also emerged by the 1930s, especially New York and Berlin (Wohl 1986, 76). Of these Berlin, of course, lost the status after the National Socialist attack on the >degenerated= art started.

25

their work. One of the visitors was the group of the German dancer and

choreographer Kurt Jooss, with a programme that included the piece Der Grüne

Tisch (The Green Table), with which Jooss had already won the first price at an

international dance competition held in Paris in 1932.

Also Étienne Decroux gave his contribution, although he does not feature in the

publicity and press as much as Jooss and many of the other performers36.

However, a hand programme shows that La Compagnie théâtrale 1787

presented a piece named Bec dans l'eau by Étienne Decroux at the Comédie des

Champs-Elysées in September 193737. The programme contains a synopsis of

play text:

Le roi de l'automobile a remplacé ses ouvriers par des machines. Ceux-ci, privés de

salaires n'achètent plus aux commercants qui, ruinés de ce fait, n'achètent plus au roi

de l'automobile. Des lors, la révolté des chômeurs est possible. Pour la tuer dans

l'oeuf, le "roi" envoie son economiste parmi eux, avec la mission de leur brouiller

l'ententement. La tentative échoue, et on fait appel au dictateur qui essaiera d'abrutir le

peuple à force de défilés.38

This play was not a pure mimodrama even if the goal was to diminish the

importance of text and stage decoration. It was described as >un prologue et un

acte= which consisted of nine episodes, and it was played by four actors39.

36 According to M. Raymond Cogniat, interviewed by Le Figaro, the French performers which would likely to be included were Sylvain Itkine's group (Le Diable écarlate); Claude Dauphin's group (Masques); Autant's and Lara's Art et Action; Medieval theatre by a University Group; Comédiens Routiers; Compagnie Quatre Saisons; and Les Compagnons de Jeux de Henri Brochet which would perform "Le Chevalier Misère, pièce japonaise au quatorzième siècle". Le Figaro 13.4.1937 Les Spectacles que les Jeunes Compagnies présenteront au Théâtre d'Essai. (Rondel Rt 12.811).

37 Hand programme G.F.I (25). The performance was paired with the performance of

Sylvain Itkine's group.

38 Hand programme. G.F.I (25).

39 The four actors were Julien Verdier, Suzannne Lodieu, Pierre Burin and Decroux himself

(Hand programme G.F.I (25).

26

The story of Bec dand l=Eau was clearly in touch with the spirit of the times:

automation is abolishing the jobs and the industrial dispute at the auto factory is

ended violently by a dictator. Automobile industry with its de-humanising

assembly lines and automatisation is familiar, for example, from Aldous Huxley's

novel Brave New World (1931) in which characters swear in the name and

honour of Ford, to Charles Chaplin's film Modern Times from 1936. The fight

between a despotic capitalist and employees is portrayed in another

contemporary film, Jean Renoir's Front Populaire classic Le Crime de M. Lange

from 1936.

Étienne Decroux inherited an interest in politics from his father, and in his youth

he even considered a political career. According to Decroux=s son, Maximilien,

his father=s political inclinations at that time were presumably close to

Trotskyism40. The theme of Bec dans l=eau was thus not a surprising choice,

although it cannot be said that Decroux=s 1930s mime proper was loaded with as

straightforward political message as this play.

Nor does Jean-Louis Barrault seem overtly political in his 1930s= productions.

Certainly, the world of Autour d=une mère (1935) is that of a rural working class

and La Faim (1939) shows a world polarised between the haves and have-nots.

The first work was based on William Faulkner=s novel As I lay dying and the

second on Knut Hamsun=s novel of the same title. The overall themes of these

plays, however, deal more with an existentialist or metaphysical than a political

struggle. In his third 1930s production, Numance (1937) which was based on

Cervantes= text, Barrault wanted to give support to the Republicans at the

Spanish civil war, but that was just one motivation for staging the play41.

In Brave New World, Huxley shows how repetitive moral statements are used to

40 Decroux, M. (1997) 53. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

41 Barrault 1972, 113.

27

affect the behaviour of the citizens. Such verbal manipulation was not strange

neither to the totalitarian regimes of the time nor to the politicians representing

totalitarian ideologies. Radio broadcasting made this kind of propaganda even

easier.42 It is intriguing to see mime, and also modern dance, in which gestures

and bodily expression take over words, as an artistic statement against political

phraseology of the 1930s. Ironically, however, physical culture was also

appropriated for nationalistic and totalitarian purposes.

2. ... and the Physical Culture

The belief in the value of physical culture was widely spread during the first

decades of 20th century. Physical exercises were often paired with nationalistic

or patriotic values. The primitive gymnastics movement, developed in connection

with the People's College movement in Denmark is a typical example:

The aim of this movement is to furnish enjoyable, wholesome physical activity for

young working people. It is a revolt against the formal Ling System, although it has, in

a way grown out of it. The basis of the program is made up of athletics, games, and

folk dances. - - National songs are often sung with the exercises.43

The Swedish Ling system of gymnastics was followed and formed the basis of

contemporary physical training in many European countries and in the United

42

It was not only in the radio in which language was used hypnotically. For example, in addition to the 'regular' political rallies, National Socialists in Germany favoured huge outdoor spectacles in which a hypnotically reciting chorus played a major role (Zortman 1984, 28). These Thingspiel contained pageantry, parades, and even pantomime, often in the form of tableaux vivants, but eventually the growth of the chorus diminished the actors' attempts to mime and gesture (Zortman 1984, 91). In this interresting example of words taking over the gesture, Zortman is referring to the historian Arthur Kutcher=s evaluation of one of the last Thingspiel spectacles in 1936.

43 Wood - Cassidy 1927, 350.

28

States44. Jacques Lecoq is convinced that it influenced also Decroux:

Cette gymnastique fut la première expérience d'éducation physique d'Étienne Decroux

(avant qu'il ne s'inscrive à l'école du Vieux-Colombier de Jacques Copeau) qui

conserva de cette pratique la riqueur des attitudes.45

A good example of the Ling system=s influence on mime is the manual, How we

train the body; the mechanics of pantomimic technique written by Elisa J.

Harwood in 1933. She divides her own training method into two independent

phases, organic and harmonic.

The primary purpose of organic training in health, increase of vitality and the

formation of habits which shall build character, resulting from the development of the

various mental faculties which are influenced directly by physical work. Organic

gymnastics also aim to establish correct posture and proper carriage, observed chiefly

in the walk, and to develop the body into an harmonious whole under the control of

the will.46

Harwood's organic training is based upon the Ling System which aims at

harmonious bodily development. Every muscle in the body was to be developed

in the right relation to every other muscle47.

The purpose of harmonic training, which is the other part of her system, is the

development of the possibilities of the body for expressive manifestation or reaction to

stimuli. The exercises employed must not be mistaken for movements expressing

emotion. They are simply mechanical manipulations practiced for freeing the agents to

44 Harwood 1933, 12; Lecoq 1987, 60.

45 Lecoq 1987, 60.

46 Harwood 1933, 11.

47 Harwood 1933, 12.

29

such an extent that they will automatically react to pictures in the mind.48

Harwood's writing shows that theorising on physical training and its components

and its necessity for the expression was 'in the air' not only in Europe but also in

the United States, and that the inspiration did derive to some extent from the

same sources even if they could be used for different purposes.

The French favoured also hébertism, a physical training method developed by a

widely-travelled ex-officer Georges Hébert. Also l=École du Vieux-Colombier

had strict physical training programme based on the method of Hébert49. The idea

of these excercises was to reunite modern man with his body which he had

alienated from. A certain idealisation of >primitive= cultures was strong.

Ayant voyagé beaucoup, Hébert avait constaté que les peuples primitifs avaient un

développement physique harmonieux grâce aux exercices naturels auxquels leur mode

de vie les contraignait: marcher, courir, sauter, grimper, lever-porter, lancer, attaquer-

se défendre, nager, équilibrisme et quadrupédie.50

Hébert himself taught at theVieux-Colombier school briefly, later Jean Dorcy

took charge of the excercises. As will be seen later in this study, some traces of

hébertism can be found also from Decroux=s early work..

From the >primitive= it is easy to move to nudism which, again, was popular

during the period. Freikörperkultur, which emphasised the importance of nature

and nudity in human well-being, is an example from Germany. When developing

their new mime, Decroux and Barrault covered themselves only with loincloths,

so that the work of muscles could be better observed. Whether this was nudism

48 Harwood 1933, 19. In this context Harwood refers to Steele McKaye whose excercises trace back to Delsarte.

49 These had in 1921-22 replaced the Dalcrozian eurythmics excercises which Copeau had grown dissatisfied with (de Marinis 1997, 28).

50 Lecoq 1987, 61.

30

or >sculpturalism= is hard to tell. Nevertheless, this minimal costume stayed as

part of Decroux=s image for decades, although in public performances he

eventually resorted to the use of leotards.

Another aspect related to physical culture were the systems for categorising

individuals by either their racial features or by general physical appearance and

drawing conclusions on the individual=s mental characteristics on the basis of this.

It is logical that this would be of interest also for theatre theorists and

practioners. A French example of these theorists is Pierre Abraham, who applied

the medical and psychological research on the correspondence of gestures and

psyche in theatre51. Abraham divides human beings in four physical types which

all have their typical psychological natures. He pays special attention to the

variation of mimicry, and its concentration on certain parts of face, between the

different types52. He does not write much about the possible differences in the

total corporeal expression of these types, but it can be assumed that the same

differences would reflect also on this level.

Against this background, it is slightly surprising that there is no evidence of

Decroux or Barrault being interested in these theories or similar categorisations.

Certainly, they categorised their findings but, possibly, because they wanted to

find concise grammar of movement and gesture applicable to all human types,

they were not interested in restricting their work on character or personality

types at this stage. As will be seen later in this study, Decroux did develop

outlines for socio-occupational character types later in his career.

51 Abraham 1933, 1. Abraham a member of Gaston Baty's theatre group from 1931 on and had thus a direct outlet for the theories.

52 Abraham 1933, 3. The types are named 'respiratoire', 'digestif', 'musculaire', and cérébral'. On functional level there are only two categories of human types, concave and convex.

31

3. The Era of the Unspoken

Some scholars hold that the popularity of mime in France is a protest against the

overwhelming dominance of the word in French culture.53 However, mistrust in

word is not restricted solely in France. It can be seen as a wider philosophical

mistrust in language=s power of expression, prompted by the advancement of

science, mathematics and psychoanalysis54. As mentioned earlier, the 1930s

strongly propagandist use of the language might have added to this perception.

George Steiner's article The Retreat from the Word shows, that a deep mistrust in

the accuracy of verbal expression forms an essential part of the whole Western

modern thinking. Steiner argues that retreat from the word has been most

startling and pronounced in philosophy, starting from Descartes and, especially,

Spinoza. In 20th century, this mistrust became even more pronounced.

Wittgenstein's entire work starts out by asking whether there is any verifiable relation

between the word and the fact. - - Wittgenstein compels us to wonder whether reality

can be spoken of, when speech is merely a kind of infinite regression, words being

spoken of other words.55

Steiner continues that modern art has rebelled against realism since post-

impressionism and that non-objective and abstract art reject the mere possibility

of linguistic equivalent56. It was this intellectual and aesthetic frame that also

modern French mime was tied to. Not surprisingly, modern mime shunned

53 Felner 1986, 168 (based on Harold Rosenberg).

54 Psychoanalysis had its influence on the French theatre of the early 20th century. The drama of Henri René Lenormand from 1920's is a clear example. Another is so called théâtre du silence from the same decade which, without having any pantomimic aspirations, emphasised that the silence or silences in dialogue had more importance than the words (Sorbets, La Petite Illustration 22.7.1922).

55 Steiner 1961, 21.

56 Steiner 1961, 22.

32

resolutely the idea of deriving gestures from their linguistic equivalents.

The profound difference between Western and Oriental approaches to the word

is one of the most interesting aspects that Steiner outlines in his paper. Steiner

argues that the verbal character of Western civilization derives from Greek-

Judaic inheritance, whereas in Oriental metaphysics

the highest purest reach of the contemplative act is that which has learned to leave

language behind it. The ineffable lies beyond the frontiers of the word.57

An equally interesting point taken up by Steiner is that the language of modern

science is figurative and mathematical, and that, in modern world, the chasm

between the language of words and of the language of mathematics grows

increasingly wider.

- - until the seventeenth century, the sphere of language encompassed nearly the whole

of experience and reality; today, it comprises a narrower domain. It no longer

articulates, or is relevant to, all major modes of action, thought, and sensibility.58

Mathematical sciences, especially chemistry and physics, advanced greatly in the

beginning of 20th century and, no doubt, this progress affected the intellectual

atmosphere of the first decades of the century. The year 1932, sometimes called

the "miracle year" of physics59, saw the discovery of neutron, which eventually

led to the unveiling of nuclear fission at the end of the decade. News on scientific

discoveries and the individual scientists working on this area in different

countries, were covered in the media to such extent that sometimes the results

appeared in newspapers and magazines before they were published in scientific

journals60.

57 Steiner 1961, 12.

58 Steiner 1961, 24.

59 Sime 1996, 125.

60 Sime 1996, 261.

33

This advancement of science was not always seen as a positive trend. Especially

after World War I, there were strong anti-science tendencies stressing the role of

intuition instead of science and the role of action instead of contemplation as

sources of knowledge61.

Surrealism, psychoanalysis, love of animals, sanitarianism and sports are modern

movements. What have they in common? The rebellion of life against progress, which

often tends to smother or strangle life.62

Aldous Huxley=s Brave New World, with its vision of genetically, mentally, and

chemically regulated humankind is clearly one of the anti-science statements.

However, it seems that advancement of science and technology was also glorified

among modern artists63. In Paris, people were not only aware of trends in art but

"ideas of the fourth dimension, relativity, in ethics if not in physics, non-

Euclidean geometry, and the unconscious were everywhere"64. Also Decroux=s

and Barrault=s Ascience of mime@ was to be based on clearly defined principles of

movement as an expressive, physical art.65

It is symptomatic that Decroux's work has been described mathematical or

geometric in many occasions. Behind Decroux's efforts for corporeal mime we

can also see the (modern) individual need to claim a domain, to carve a niche, to

find one=s own element for the periodic table. The persistence with which

Decroux worked with his discovery can, again, be compared to scientific

61 Wohl 1986, 73.

62 Decroux (1961), xx.

63 Futurism and constructivism are the most obvious examples.

64 Crunden 1993, 330-331. To be exact, Crunden writes here about Gertrude Stein's circle.

65 Alberts 1989, 2.

34

laboratory work. A parallel to science and scientific discipline division can also be

seen in his emphasis on mime as a separate art form which would be different

from theatre and different from dance.

Mistrust in word, controversial relation to science, and search for new, abstract,

non-linear forms of expression are all common denominators for the multi-

faceted movement of modernism or as Robert Crunden summarises:

European modernism first of all stressed the disruptions and discontinuities of a

modernity which affected time, space, and sound. Evolving out of an evolutionary

paradigm based on Darwinian biology, modernists attacked linearity as conveying a

false order to experience of life.66

How does Decroux=s and Barrault=s modern mime relate to modernism?

4. Modern French Mime as Part of Modernism

Especially the 1980s scholarship attempts to place modern French mime in the

context of modernism. This serves two purposes. On one hand, it helps to justify

the uniqueness of the mime style which was developed from 1930s on. On the

other hand, this approach aims to fortify modern mime's status as an independent

art form.

As far as the time of conception of Decroux's and Barrault's theories is

concerned, it is easy to find links to modernism. The early work of Decroux and

Barrault co-incides with the period defined as "the center of the intellectual

gravity for the Modernist movement - - located roughly in - - 1900-1940"67. And

66 Crunden 1993, xii.

67 Quinones, 1986, 13.

35

even if somewhat different timing is used, such as Robert Wohl's generational

approach, which sees the generation 1914, i.e. the ones born in the late 1880s

and early 1890s, bringing the epicenter of the modernism to the years 1890-

193368, it is not too far-fetched to place Decroux (born in 1898) and even

Barrault (born in 1910) to this generation. Especially since, like romanticism in

19th century, modernism emerged at different times in different arts. The

importance of France as the source of the modernist creative influence is

undeniable in all other arts except dance and architecture.69

The critic Harold Rosenberg writes that the modernist movement started in the

late 19th century with symbolism and proceeded through Freud's influence to

expressionism and, finally, to abstractionism. The only constants of this multi-

faceted movement, which he calls Paris Modern, were conscious aesthetic

theorising coupled with a search for new forms, and the consistent repudiation of

naturalism, with its literal replication of reality.70

Mira Felner ties the most important French 20th century mimes, Étienne

Decroux, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Marceau, and Jacques Lecoq, to

Rosenberg=s Paris Modern and the fight against dominance of word in the French

culture. She sees strong correspondences between the theories of these

movements and the thoughts of the four individual mimes. Yet Felner questions

whether the work of the four mimes forms an unique genre with its own

aesthetics. She ends up concluding that, despite the strong differences in the four

mimes' work and theories, there are common features which justify the use of the

term 'modern French mime'. These common features are: conscious formal

aesthetics, need to establish mime as an art form, and an emphasis on movements'

68 Wohl 1986, 68.

69 Greenberg 1986, 18.

70 Felner 1985, 169.

36

priority to action.71

Felner sees that Jacques Copeau was the first one to combine the ideology of

Paris Modern to the mime tradition. Of the four performers, Barrault is closest to

the mainstream of the whole movement, and of all of them, most significant as a

theorist. Decroux can be identified with the first stages of the movement,

Marceau with the later developments and Lecoq with the last, abstractionist,

stage. This way the 'modern French mime' not only gains legitimacy as a term but

can be called 'the corporeal expression of contemporary aesthetics' and a new

step in the history of mime.

Thomas Leabhart discusses modernism quite along the same lines but not as

systematically as Felner. He mentions the development of science and technical

inventions, the sports, the simplicity of line, the abstract aspirations. According

to Leabhart, reducing things to their essence likens Decroux's work to the work

of modernist painters and sculptors, especially Mondrian and Brancusi72. Felner

has similar allusions. She writes that it was cubism that affected Decroux's work

most directly73. Leabhart also states that the corporeal mime studies are like the

best cubist paintings74.

The most interesting aspect of modernism from the point of view of this study, is

the interest in the exotic and foreign. The modernist was a member of a fairly

restricted circle of artists and intellectuals75, an outsider to whom

to be most modern was to be most alienated, and that meant to feel most at home in

71 Felner 1985, 168.

72 Leabhart 1989, 49.

73 Felner 1986, 62.

74 Leabhart 1989, 49.

75 Wohl 1986, 67.

37

ancient Greece or China, or in medieval Europe or Japan.76

As seen in Steiner=s argumentation, Western mistrust in word led to the

appreciation of Oriental metaphysics which played down the role of verbal

language. Modernism seems to be yet another route to the East.

The idealisation and admiration of past and foreign theatre forms, such as

commedia dell=arte or Japanese, Chinese or Balinese theatre, can be found from

all major theatrical renovators of the first four decades of 20th century. Jacques

Copeau and Edward Gordon Craig are clear examples, so are Antonin Artaud,

Bertolt Brecht, and Vsevolod Meyerhold. Their knowledge of non-European

genres might not always have been accurate to the point but, for the most part,

none of them was particularly concerned about it. The main goal was to gather

tools for the renovation and revitalisation of Western theatre.

Against this background, it is quite legitimate to ask if Decroux and Barrault had

similar ideas as these men of theatre when they set out to renovate the art of

mime. It is time to look closer at the problematics of the intercultural in the

theatre, and to examine what Oriental theatre exactly meant in the 1930s.

Especially important is to find out what Japanese performances were accessible

for Decroux and Barrault before and during the 1930s, and what theoretical

approaches could be applied for analysing the possible influence of these in their

work.

76 Crunden 1993, xxii. To be exact, Crunden is here speaking about the first American modernist generation but the same might be extended to other modernists.

38

III. THE INTERCULTURAL ORIENT EXPRESS

1. Intercultural Theatre and Intercultural Theatre Research

It has already been tentatively defined that 'intercultural theatre' refers to

theatrical performances which include a varying amount of contents and

techniques from the theatre of other cultural areas that are distinctly different

than the theatre of the area in question. >Theatrical interculturalism= is a general

term which refers to the trend or phenomenon. >Intercultural theatre research=,

for its part, is concerned with the processes and outcome of >intercultural theatre=

and >theatrical interculturalism=.

Since intercultural theatre research emerged only two decades ago, it is often

assumed that the processes of theatrical interculturalism are, at least to some

extent, conscious, and that researchers have an opportunity for direct observation

of performances and are able to interview performers to search and confirm - or

to question - the intercultural influences. Historical perspective, in this case the

focusing in the 1930s, adds its own dimension, especially when it comes to the

conscious appropriation of other cultures by the performers. In addition to

relying on the direct and indirect testimonies and evidence of the possible impact,

it is also necessary to ask what influences were available either for conscious

appropriation or for more unconscious infiltration.

Patrice Pavis approaches his definition of the intercultural theatre through

discussion of the related terms. He differentiates between:

- international or cosmopolitan which arises mainly for economical reasons and

expresses itself in international festivals and tours;

- intracultural which searches for the lost national traditions;

- transcultural which focuses on the universal human condition behind the

39

various cultural expressions;

- ultracultural which involves a mythic quest for the lost purity of theatre;

- precultural which focuses on the common strata of the Eastern and Western

theatre practice before they become acculturated in particular traditions;

- postcultural which emphasizes the post-modern fragmentation of culture. A

certain element of post-culturalism is embedded in the theatre which liberally uses

fragments of other cultures;

- metacultural when one culture comments another developing a critical

commentary on a meta-textual level and becomes an interpretive meta-

language.77 Only after this analysis, Pavis proceeds to his definition for

intercultural theatre as a theatre which

- - creates hybrid forms drawing upon a more or less conscious and voluntary mixing

of performance traditions traceable to distinct cultural areas. The hybridization is often

such that the original forms can no longer be distinguished.78

To what extent can Étienne Decroux's and Jean-Louis Barrault's mime with its

alledged Oriental influences, be perceived as intercultural theatre, or would the

other categories suit better for describing it? This will be seen when Decroux's

and Barrault's work is examined through three model categories of theatrical

interculturalism, which seem particularly relevant for the research topic: the pre-

expressive model; the 'degreeable' or 'infiltration' models; and the

'misunderstanding' models.

77 Pavis 1996, 5-9. First presented in Pavis 1992, 20-21.

78 Pavis 1996, 8.

40

1.1. The Pre-Expressive Model

Theatre anthropology, as represented by the director and founder of ISTA

(International School of Theatre Anthropology)79 Eugenio Barba and also by the

American director and scholar Richard Schechner, is a predecessor for the

intercultural theories of the 1980s and 1990s. What makes theatre anthropology

particularly interesting for this study, is that the points of its non-European

theatrical attachment are predominantly in the various genres of Oriental theatre.

While Schechner is focusing mostly on traditional Indian theatre, Barba's interest

covers also Japanese theatre. Not surprisingly, Barba calls his own theatre

concept >Eurasian=. Also, a large part of ISTA's research focuses in comparing

traditional Asian theatre forms with each other rather than with Western theatre

forms.80 The key theoretical frame in Barba's Eurasian theatre is the pre-

expressive model, which actually is very close to what Pavis categorises under

the precultural.

The pre-expressive model attempts to find universal principles which are

common to different performance traditions. This common substratum can,

according to Barba, most naturally be found from the theatre which is, above all,

bios as opposed to theatre which is sustained by logos81, i.e. theatre that is not

essentially verbal but lays the emphasis on the other theatrical elements. Ian

Watson summarises the premise underlying Barba's pre-expressivity:

No matter which culture an actor is from, his or her body consists of a certain mass, a

79 Theatre anthropology dates back to the 1960s and was then strongly influenced by Jerzy Grotowski's experimentation which among the European actor training tradition used the Oriental as an inspiration (Schechner 1969, 200). ISTA was founded in 1979 and it is based in Holstebro, Denmark although seminars and workshops are organised also in other countries and locations.

80 Watson 1996, 228.

81 Barba 1996, 220.

41

trunk and extremities, has a centre of gravity, and opposing groups of muscular

tensions that he or she uses to walk, stand up, sit down, dance, etc. And regardless of

the performer's chosen genre - be it Topeng, Odissi, Noh or corporeal mime - these

biological givens are physical tools he or she has to work with.82

Most interesting is that, for Barba, Étienne Decroux's corporeal mime provides

the most consistent Western sounding board for the pre-expressive elements that

are so prevalent in Oriental theatre forms. As a matter of fact, Decroux's Paroles

sur le mime (1963) was one of the sources against which he tested the principles

of theatre anthropology83. Emphasis on a codified system, trunk, tension and the

actor's presence are some areas that appealed to Barba in Decroux's corporeal

mime. Richard Schechner emphasizes the same elements in his Between Theater

and Anthropology (1985) calling them Aunderlying patterns@ and Athe very

thought of performance@:

- - the master-disciple relationship; the direct manipulation of the body as transmitting

performance knowledge; respect for >body learning= as distinct from >head learning=;

also, a regard for the performance text as braiding of various performance >languages=,

none of which can always claim primacy.84

One similarity between Barba's and Decroux's experimentation is their

introvertism which borders neglect of the audience. Experimentation is

conducted between and for peers in laboratory-like circumstances. This neglect

of audience leads to doubt that the theory of pre-expressivity taken to its

essentialist extreme would place the work of teachers above the work of most

revered performers in both Eastern and Western theatre.

82 Watson 1996, 227.

83 Barba 1997, 8.

84 Schechner 1985, 23.

42

What is more important though is that, should we follow Barba's logic, it would

not be relevant to trace Oriental influences on Decroux's and Barrault's work, but

to locate common pre-expressive features in it and in Oriental theatre forms. This

is one way to explain similarities and would certainly remove the question

whether the possible infiltration process was conscious or unconscious. Barba's

observations on Decroux, to which I shall yet return, are very perceptive and

accurate, but the pre-expressive model is not a particularly dynamic approach.

That is why it is useful to look at the other models of intercultural theatre.

1.2. The 'Degreeable' or >Infiltration= Models

These models see intercultural influences as a series or continuum in which the

influencer and the influenced are treated as definable entities.

43

Patrice Pavis presents his theory of interculturalism in the form of an hourglass in

which influences from source culture filter to target culture.85

SOURCE CULTURE

(1) cultural modelling

(2) artistic modelling

(3) perspective of the adapters

(4) work of adaptation

(5) preparatory work by actors

(6) choice of theatrical form

(7) theatrical representation of the culture

(8) reception-adapters

(9) readability

(10A) artistic modelling

(10B) sociological and anthropological modelling

(10C) cultural modelling

( 11) given and anticipated consequences

TARGET CULTURE

As will be seen in the next chapter, Pavis= model has been criticised for being too

mechanical and rational. Marvin Carlson presents a softer version by

elaborating Michael Gissenwehrer's theory. However, this model follows also the

pattern of degrees. Carlson's model moves in the axis of the concepts of >foreign=

and >familiar=86:

85 Pavis 1990, 10. The English translation: Pavis 1992, 4.

86 Carlson 1990, 50. Gissenwehrer's classification is also published in Fischer-Lichte 1990 (p.154).

44

1. The totally familiar tradition of regular performance.

2. Foreign elements assimilated into the tradition and absorbed by it. The audience

can be interested, entertained, stimulated, but they are not challenged by the foreign

material.

3. Entire foreign structures are made familiar instead of isolated elements. The

Oriental Macbeth would be an example of this.

4. The foreign and familiar create a new blend, which then is assimilated into the

tradition, becoming familiar.

5. The foreign itself becomes assimilated as a whole, becoming familiar. Examples

would be commedia dell'arte in France or Italian opera in England.

6. Foreign elements remain foreign, used within familiar structures for

Verfremdung, for shock value, or for exotic quotation. An example would be the

Oriental dance sequences in the current production of M. Butterfly in New York.

7. An entire performance from another culture is imported or recreated, with no

attempt to accommodate it with the familiar.

Carlson's model is, in a way, heavier in the waist than Pavis= hourglass. The

richness concentrates in the hybrid forms in the middle, while at both ends are the

pure representations of the >familiar= and the >foreign=. There is an assumption of

a conscious process on the part of the creators in both of these models. There is

also an assumption that the creators of a performance are well-acquainted with

the source culture which is introduced to the target culture.

Tentatively, both Pavis= hourglass and Carlson=s model seem to be useful for

analysing the influence of traditional Japanese theatre on the development of

modern mime. However, when taking into account the time difference, possible

gaps in the knowledge of traditional Japanese theatre forms and the either

conscious or unsconscious appropriation of foreign cultures for own purposes, it

is important to look into yet another model category, the >misunderstanding=

models, which set out to challenge the rational approach of especially the

>degreeable= models.

45

1.3. The 'Misunderstanding' Models

Naturally, the above mentioned models take into account the 'in-betweens', or

Amodellings@ as Pavis calls them. However, there are theorists who wish to

emphasize especially this part and bring in the role of misunderstanding or

misinterpretation of a foreign culture.

Misunderstanding can be perceived either as a positive and productive factor

caused by good faith or as a result of a conscious or unconscious exploitation of

a foreign culture. Scholars who take the positive approach, see both source and

target cultures as equally powerful, and are prone to emphasize reciprocity and

communication. For example, Franz Norbert Mannheimer writes, in a very

conciliatory tone, that perhaps the terms 'misunderstanding' and 'understanding'

should not be used at all, but rather the terms 'desire' and 'satisfaction'.87

Catherine Diamond who is predominantly interested in Eastern adaptation,

appropriation and misinterpretations of Western theatre, agrees:

Better to understand the motives - artistic and otherwise - of such exchange, one

should first dispense with the whole notion of 'misunderstanding'. There are no

'misunderstandings', only more or less persuasive interpretations. What are so facilely

labelled 'misunderstandings' should be seen as different, often culturally biased, but

still highly individual perspectives.88

Also Nicola Savarese, who does not subscribe Barba's Eurasian, pre-expressive

theatre concept nor the slightly mechanical direct or reciprocal influence theories,

writes that Athe history of the so-called influences of oriental art is fundamentally

87 Mannheimer 1990, 23.

88 Diamond 1999, 144.

46

the story of alienations producing further alienations@89 in which the artists were

immersed in the unstoppable chain of changes90 and that

the sense of encounter between Oriental and Occidental theatres does not reside

within so called reciprocal 'influences', but is to be found in the consideration of the

analogies and differences, and in communicating our experience of them.91

Antonin Artaud's perception of the Balinese dancers is a good example of

misunderstanding - or using Diamond's terminology: Apersuasive interpretation@ -

of the Oriental, and Erica Fisher-Lichte's analysis of his response is a good

example of a scholar's response:

Artaud put aside everything which might have made the performance of the Balinese

players 'understandable' in the usual sense of the word. He got rid of any possible

comprehension of the folkloristic aspects of this Asian theatre, of its plausible

mythological content, its conventional rules and its well calculated routine (which he

nevertheless admired). Artaud needed the strictly incomprehensible, irrational theatre,

the revelation of the transcending force of the 'other' which he desired with all his

heart.92

A more critical representative of the >misunderstanding= line might well see

Artaud, who got inspired by the Balinese dancers in the 1930s, as an example of

Western appropriation of the Orient. Edward Said's critical views on Western

conceptions of the Orient were published in his monograph Orientalism in 1978.

Said's central argument is based on Michel Foucault's proposition of knowledge

89

Savarese 1988, 68.

90 Savarese 1988, 74.

91 Savarese 1990, 48.

92 Fischer-Lichte 1990, 26.

47

as a mechanism for producing power93, from which it follows that the West

systematically presents the Orient as a composed object of knowledge, and uses

this construction for its own ideological purposes. Thus >Oriental= should and

could not basically be used as a synonym for >Eastern=, but should be seen as a

more complex concept. Needless to say, Said does not perceive

misunderstanding, or misinterpretation, as a positive factor, but as a power

position which subordinates the non-Western to Western needs.

One form of appropriation named by Said is the search for rejuvenation which

Western cultures sought from Oriental cultures. This approach could also be

applied for evaluating Artaud's response to the Balinese dance group:

Since romanticism: the regeneration of Europe by Asia was a very influental idea,

especially in the sense of defeating the materialism and mechanism. But what

mattered was not Asia so much as Asia's use to modern Europe.94

It should be said that many theatre practitioners have, in the name of artistic

freedom and individualism, refused to take as strong stand as Said against the

appropriation of other cultures, and have pointed out that borrowing, indeed,

takes place both ways95. However, also critical - or critico-moralist - voices

continue to be heard in the theatrical interculturalism discussion of the 1990s.

There are scholars who see Western intercultural theatre productions as blatant

exploitation of non-Western, very often Oriental, cultural traditions96. John

Russell Brown notes this 'Asian' trend in his contribution to the theatrical

93 Lewis 1996, 16.

94 Said 1978/1991, 115. In this context, Said writes about Asia but mainly his Oriental points of reference are from the Near-East.

95 For example, Richard Schechner interwieved by Patrice Pavis (Pavis 1996, 45).

96 For example, Rustom Bharucha's critical views (Bharucha 1984) provoked a fair amount of debate among the intercultural theatre practioners, for example Richard Schechner (1984).

48

exploitation debate of the 1990s:

The forms favoured for export to Europe and North America in the name of

intercultural theatre are usually those of the most ancient and site-specific Asian

traditions, and the performances copied have been developed over centuries to serve

religious beliefs in which present-day exploiters have no shred of faith, and to reflect

lives that in their daily observances and habits are as much unlike those in the

industrial West as may be imagined.97

Whether the process is seen as positive or negative, spiritual rejuvenation and

physical renovation are invariably aspects which the West seeks from the Orient.

In the field of theatre there are two inter-related areas for which the new

impulses were - and still are - sought for, namely non-verbal expression and the

corporeal skills of the actor.

The need to get closer to non-verbal expression and performance elements is

generally recognised to be one of the reasons behind the fascination with non-

European theatre forms:

Most European avant-gardists were critical of the state of contemporary civilization

and wanted to overcome the logocentrism of the Western world, to depose the image

of man defined as an individual personality and to break the limiting conception of

space. Others, such as Artaud, wanted to attack the dominance of rational

argumentation.98

It is easy to find connections to modern mime, a theatre form that does away

with words altogether, in this quest. Attacking logocentrism and breaking the

limiting conceptions of space were central for both Decroux and Barrault.

Problematics of individual personality can also be addressed through mime: the

97 Brown 1998, 11.

98 Fischer-Lichte 1990, 15.

49

mime performer usually alters personalities in a solo performance, creating

something that, in the words of the American mime Angna Enters, could be

called AThe First Person Plural@99.

Corporeality aligns with modern mime as well. For modern mime, full use of

body as a medium is as essential as white face was for 19th century mime. Patrice

Pavis writes about the transportability of corporeal training in intercultural

exchanges:

Intercultural theatre is at its most transportable and experimental when it focuses on

the actor and performance, on training of whatever duration conducted on the "others"

homeground, or an experiment with new body techniques. - - It is only ever effective

when it is accepted as inter-corporeal work, in which an actor confronts his/her

technique and professional identity with those of the others.100

When thinking about the emphasis on non-verbal and corporeality, the hypothesis

that modern mime of the 1930s would have been influenced by Oriental theatre

and subsequently be an example of intercultural theatre - either in positive or

negative sense - is justified. Before examining this more thoroughly, it is

necessary to question how the intercultural theatre theories of the1990s, which

were inspired by the intercultural theatre productions of the 1970s, 1980s, and

1990s, apply to the 1930s. It is also necessary to define a concrete model for the

Oriental to be used in this study.

1.4. Interculturalism in Historical Perspective

How different was theatrical interculturalism in the 1930s compared to the

99 This is the title of one of Enters= books. As a matter of fact, some scholars see the

origins of the word 'pantomimus' as a reference to a person who 'mimes all'.

100 Pavis 1996, 15.

50

intercultural theatre of the 1990s? In the four first decades of 20th century,

Western approaches towards non-Western performance traditions could be

coarsely divided to:

1. Outright commercial exploitation of exotic themes: music hall exotica, such as

Owen Hall=s The Geisha which was popular in both France and England at the

turn of the century101.

2. Mainstream theatrical exploitation: some imported performances which were

tailored for the Western audience, such as the European and U.S. visits of

Kawakami OtojirÇ and Sadayakko (1900-1902), Hanako (1901-22), and Tsutsui

TokujirÇ's Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai group (1930) - and also the Balinese dancers at

Colonial Exhibition in Paris (1931).

3. Mainstream theatrical exploitation: Western performances done in good faith

but without exact cultural knowledge or training: for example, Max Reinhardt's

Sumurum (1911) in Berlin or Firmin Gémier's Le Masque (1927) in Paris.

4. Experimental attempts at reproductions which were often based on literature:

the nÇ play Kantan at Jacques Copeau's École du Vieux-Colombier (1924).102

5. Inspired writing based on distant respect which considered the Oriental so

inaccessible and ideal that it could never be completely grasped in the West: for

example, the writings and comments of Edward Gordon Craig, Antonin Artaud

and Paul Claudel.

The most grotesque music hall numbers might have disappeared but the other

approaches remain valid also in the 1990s. However, there are some new aspects

to be taken into account. The key element that has brought interculturalism under

discussion is the availability of intercultural actor training, in which Western

101 Basically, the two early 20th century >Oriental= operas of Giacomo Puccini,

Madama Butterfly (1904) and Turandot (1926), could also be included in this category.

102 William Butler Yeats' nÇ -inspired dance plays (written in 1915 - 1939) might be included either to the previous or to this category. They were not original Japanese texts but Yeats' own creations but, like Kantan, they were performed for a small, private audences, unlike Gémier's and Reinhardt's productions.

51

actors have, especially after World War II, been more at the receiving end. The

interest and possibilities for these kinds of experiences were more limited in the

1930s. Theatre visionaries might have admired occasional performers, they might

have read about non-Western theatre forms, but training with master performers

of Eastern theatre forms was not as self-evident as it is today, when a Western

actor can enroll in a kathakali school in Kerala, buy lessons from a nÇ master in

Japan, or have a workshop with topeng dancers in Denmark.

The 1990s discourse on interculturalism is also reflecting the post-colonialist and

post-imperialist themes of the 1960s and 1970s103. It was only after World War

II, that the colonial world finally broke down and the struggles of independence

started to erode earlier Western perceptions of the AOrient@. A strong amount of

Western self-reflection is without doubt inspired by Edward Said and other

scholars, who from their respective points of view have added to, and also

challenged Said's views104. And even if Oriental theatre still is a revered source of

professional rejuvenation, and Eastern countries justified places to search for

inspiration, for many Western performers, there is also a need to understand and

respect non-Western cultures as equal. Another matter is, that the economic

inequality between the West and a number of Eastern countries still exists. On

average, Western performers have much more opportunities to buy training from

the East than vice versa, and individual Western artists are not necessarily aware

how much impact their quest for training and subsequent use of the techniques

affects the original art form and the culture surrounding it. Scholars have paid

attention to this aspect as well.105

103 Fischer-Lichte, in Pavis 1996, 28.

104 For example Reina Lewis in her Gendering Orientalism. Race, Femininity and Representation (1996) problematises Said's views from gender perspective by pointing out that in Orientalism (if not necessarily in Said's later works) gender occurs only as a metaphor for the negative characterization of the Orientalized Other as 'feminine' (Lewis 1996, 18).

105 Bharucha 1984, 16. Brown 1998, 11.

52

2. Japanese Theatrical Exchanges with the West

2.1. Between East and West

East-West cultural appropriation is not a one-way street. Western performance

styles, themes and texts have been - and are - used in Eastern and other non-

Western theatre106. The Japanese, whose traditional theatre forms I have, for the

reasons given earlier, chosen to represent the Oriental theatre in the 1930s, have

probably been the most elusive borrowers from the West, including China.

Thinking about the origins of kabuki, for example: do not the legends tell that

Okuni, the creator of onna kabuki, used to dress up in clothing and jewelry

inspired by the Portuguese missionaries107?

It would, indeed, be simplified to see traditional Japanese theatre forms as merely

exploitable, exotic, and virginal source material for Western theatre. In Meiji

period (1868-1912), after Japan was opened to and by the West, traditional

theatre forms were consciously appropriated by the Japanese themselves for

political and ideological purposes. Kabuki was formed to a representatative of

the modern, Western-oriented Japan108 when Ichikawa DanjurÇ IX (1839-1903)

polished it and, with themes taken from Japanese history and its heroes, made it

representable for both the imperial court and to Western spectators109. During

Meiji, the more aristocratic nÇ was performed rarely although eminent Western

106 For example, Erica Fisher-Lichte gives a condensed summary of these (Fisher-Lichte 1990, 11-18). A more polemical approach is taken by Catherine Diamond in her article on the Asian orientalist productions of Greek tragedy (Diamond 1999).

107 Kominz 1997,19.

108 Nygren 1993, 25.

109 Nakamura 1988, 33.

53

visitors did have an opportunity to see it. During TaishÇ period (1912-1926) also

nÇ became increasingly accessible for larger audience and attracted a growing

number of amateurs.110

The traditional theatre forms did get some competition from shimpa, the

originally amateur-based theatre with roots in the late 1880s. The most

productive period of shimpa was the first decade of 20th century. Along with

contemporary Japanese plays, shimpa introduced Western classical repertory to

Japanese audiences. Shingeki, which was born in university circles in the first

decade of 20th century eventually perfected and professionalised the

performances based on Western repertoire, as well as had great impact on the

development of modern Japanese drama. Shingeki also gave new impulses to

kabuki: the kabuki actor Ichikawa Sadanji (1880-1940) collaborated with one of

the shingeki's most important figures, Kaoru Osanai (1881-1928). Both Sadanji

and Kaoru made study trips to Europe, and Ichikawa Sadanji's company also

performed in Moscow in 1928.

Since Meiji period, Japanese individuals representing different fields of art and

scholarship travelled to Europe, the United States, and also to Russia/Soviet

Union, bringing back influences and applying those in their work. Thus they

contributed to Westernisation of Japan. For example, Kaoru's major influences

came from "primarily non-Anglo-Saxon authors"111 and the directors Konstantin

Stanislavsky and Max Reinhardt. Another major name in shingeki's history,

Hijikata YÇshi (1998-1959), studied in Germany and was eventually influenced

by Vsevolod Meyerhold, both stylistically and politically.

We have already touched on the political polarisation of the West in the 1930s.

Also Japan went through waves of political upheavals during Meiji, TaishÇ and

110 Nygren 1993, 25.

111 Ortolani 1995, 247.

54

ShÇwa (1926-1989) periods. These events reflected in the theatre. The first

champions of shimpa were actually radicals fighting against the conservative

government. Among them was Kawakami OtojirÇ, who would bring the first

Japanese theatre company to Europe in 1900. However, by then, Kawakami had

already given up his radicalism and gained success with extremely patriotic and

spectacular plays during the war between China and Japan in 1894-95. Shingeki

was originally relatively apolitical, but in the 1920s when Japan was suffering

from economic crisis, social upheaval and the repressive politics of the

conservative government, the youger shingeki generation, among them Hijikata,

moved strongly to the left. Eventually this led to censorship and arrests of

authors and performers. The repression intensified during the 1930s112 when

Japan started its military expansion in Asia by establishing Manchukuo in 1932.

Especially in the 1930s, the Japanese colonialism which was directed towards

other Asian nations was as fervent as the Western varieties of the ideology.

Jennifer Robertson analyses the Japanese cultural colonialism and, in this context,

makes a difference between Said=s concept of >Orientalism= which refers to the

West=s presentation of the Other (the non-West) as absolutely different from the

West and >orientalism= in the meaning of, for example, the various orientalist

schemes created by the Japanese wartime ideologues to rationalise their

imperialist claims in Asia and the Pacific.

Japan which arguably was not colonized by Euro-American powers but was itself a

colonizer, complicates the critique of Orientalism and the oppositional construction of

an internally coherent third world.113

It could be said that Japan defined its position in between East and West, and,

from that position, the on-going cultural influences were more of a norm than an

112 Ortolani 1995, 250-253.

113 Robertson 1998, 98.

55

exception. Interestingly, the Japanese performers who came to the West during

the first decades of 20th century - and were marketed as representatives of the

traditional Japanese theatre - were themselves interesting mixtures of East and

West and the old and the new.

2.2. Japanese Theatre in France: From Woodblocks to the Stage

2.2.1. The First Encounters

The late 19th century brought japonisme, an intense interest in and appropriation

of Japanese art, to France. Among the art works that inspired the artists were

Japanese woodblock prints with their lavish range of kabuki actor portraits and

some pictures of theatre buildings. There were also occasional attempts to stage

Japanese plays or plays on Japanese themes - the first of these took place as early

as in 1871114. However, Parisian audiences did not get a chance to see live

Japanese performers115 until 1900 when Kawakami OtojirÇ=s group of thirty

members performed in connection with World Fair and subsequently toured in

Europe. Their performances were advertised as kabuki even if the programme

actually consisted of adaptations from the kabuki repertory116 performed by a

shimpa group. The star of the otherwise all-male group was Kawakami=s wife,

114 Shinoya 1986, 15.The play was Seiryãji, translated by Léon de Rosny as Le Couvent du Dragon Vert. In 1879 Maeda Masana, in collaboration with Judith Gautier, presented, Yamato, an adaptation of Chãsingura which Maeda had transtated into French.

115 The Paris Exposition in 1867 did have geishas in display and also two groups of Japanese acrobats performed in connection with it (Pronko 1967, 115).

116 The programme consisted of such plays as Kesa, Jingoro, Takanori, The Geisha and

the Chevalier (compiled from from Ukiozuka-hyoku no Inazuma or Sayaaté and KyÇkanoko- Musume-DÇjÇji), The ShÇgun, The Sorceress, and Kosan. Also an act from Shakespeare=s The Merchant of Venice was included (Shionoya 1986, 32). Loie Fuller participated actively in modifying the selected material to the Parisian aundience=s taste (Shionoya 1986, 39.)

56

Kawakami Sada (1872-1946) or Sadayakko117, who was not an actress but an

accomplished geisha who had musical and dance training - and obvious talent.

The visit took place during Meiji period when Japanese visitors still had a strong

desire to study in the West. It is reported that the purpose of Kawakami OtojirÇ's

trip to Europe and to United States was to study Western theatre118, not to

perform, but that a theatre manager in San Francisco persuaded him to gather a

group and give performances119. In Europe, the manager of the group was Loie

Fuller, the notorious American dancer who had settled in France, and who with

her keen business sense had realised the Western audience=s hunger for the exotic

and the different120.

The audience sought to discover the rest of the world, the >noncivilized= world,

through them, and wanted to soothe itself with a sense of its own superiority by

then being able to congratulate itself for having been able to evaluate and penetrate

the mysteries which that world, the other world, undoubtedly still possessed.121

Following Kawakami OtojirÇ=s and especially Sadayakko=s success, Fuller

discovered and promoted another Japanese female performer, Hanako who

ended up staying and performing in the West for twenty years, from 1901 to

1922. Like Sadayakko, Hanako had a background as a geisha, was made a star in

117 Sadayakko is an artistic name, a combination of the artist=s first name and her

geisha name Yakko. Also spelling >Sada Yacco= is widely used. It is not known whether the name was coined by Loie Fuller, as the name Hanako was. Hanako=s real name was Ota Hisa.

118 Pronko 1967, 122. According to Pronko, it was also due to an accident that caused Sadayakko to replace a female impersonator.

119 Ortolani 1995, 237.

120 Savarese 1988, 65.

121 Savarese 1988, 65. It is interesting how >Saidian= Savarese=s opinions on the audience are compared to his liberal attitude of the intercultural exchanges between artists.

57

a group of Japanese performers, and like Sadayakko she gained acclaim for her

tragic death scenes122. In addition to pieces modified from traditional Japanese

repertory, Hanako also appeared in a number of pieces à la japonaise composed

by Loie Fuller.123

There were many groups imported from the (unspecified) Orient at least in

London in the beginning of 20th century - the Japanese group with which

Hanako came to Europe was just one among them.124 It is possible that some of

these groups performed in Paris as well, since it was customary that the managers

toured the companies in European capitals and other major cities. As far as

theatre performances are concerned, there was at least one other Japanese

performance during the first decades of the century. In 1910, two members of the

Kawakami group, named Udagawa and Kawamura, who stayed in Paris to study

European theatre, presented a tragic mimodrama, Vengeange, in which they each

played various roles, such as a samurai, an old man, an old woman, a young man,

and a servant125.

World War I silenced the Eastern theatrical front for some years, and situation

stayed quiet throughout most of the 1920s. Ichikawa Sadanji IX and his group

visited Moscow in1928 but, unfortunately, they did not extend the tour to other

122 Savarese 1988, 64; Pronko 1967, 120-121. Even if the actresses had not received kabuki training they followed performing conventions typical for kabuki (Savarese 1988, 68).

123 Savarese 1988, 67. The plays had such titles as A Drama of Yoshiwara, The Japanese Puppet, The Tiny Japanese, and The Japanese Ophelia. For an American modern dancer, these themes were not that queer of a topic. For example, Ruth St.Denis gained acclaim with her >Indian= dance Raddha and Ted Shawn with his Sword Dance. The exotic was used in the early modern dance as deliberately as in music hall.

124 Savarese 1988, 66. The group was not a theatre company but consisted of dancers, musicians, and acrobats.

125 Marchès, Leo Acteurs Japonais, Liberté 27 mars 1910. Cited in Shionoya 1986, 67. Pronko reports also that Sadayakko returned for a tour in Europe in 1908 (Pronko 1967,123). The dancer ItÇ Michio who had originally come to Europe in 1911 to study modern dance also ended up fulfilling the Western craving for the Japanese by performing, as well as acquiring and translating materials on nÇ, in Yeats= At the Hawk=s Well (1916).

58

European capitals since they could have offered, for example, the Parisian

audience the most authentic kabuki than it had seen and would see for decades.

Instead, Parisians were entertained by another >kabuki= company, Tsutsui

TokujirÇ=s Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai in 1930.

2.2.2. Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai

In Sadayakko=s and Hanako's case the publicity focused on the individual artists,

the star actresses, even if they performed with a larger group. Both were

marketed as Eastern equivalents of the great Western actress-divas, although

neither of them had been on stage in Japan126. The 1930 visit of the Japanese

group, Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai, led by Tsutsui TokujirÇ was a different event. The

group was advertised as an ensemble, a kabuki ensemble to be exact. In twenty

years, the Western emphasis had switched from star actors to ensembles - the

work of Copeau and his followers was not without its effect. Léon Moussinac

summed up the change in 1931:

Ce qui n'est plus que l'expression de l'esprit individualiste est condamné. Ce qui tend

vers l'expression de l'esprit collectif est sûr de vivre. Au spectacle de demain, en effet,

la participation sera collective. Et la création anonyme, en quelque sorte. La structure

du monde change.127

Considering how strong the cult of star actors is in kabuki, this is slightly ironic

but, again, the actors of the Tsutsui's group were not professional kabuki actors.

They were practically unknown in Japan, and, unlike in the traditional kabuki

even today, all women's roles were played by women. Tsutsui did not have an

126 Savarese, 1988, 65; Pronko 1967, 122. Mixed theatre companies were still forbidden in Japan, and even in shimpa plays, the women=s roles were played by men.

127 Moussinac 1931, 28.

59

onnagata in the group128.

There was no strong emphasis on any of the leading actors, although Tsutsui as

the leader of the group did get more attention than the others and was

interviewed individually129.

Performances of Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai took place at the Pigalle theatre from May

2 to May 15. The programme consisted of four pieces which were synopsised in

the hand programme130:

1.Koi-no-Yozakura (L'amour au temps des cerisiers en fleurs) was described as a

lyrical dance drama and presented a street scene from Tokyo's Yoshiwara with its

various characters.

2.Kyô-no-Ningyô (La poupée), "scène mimo-danse", told a version of the

Pygmalion story: a sculptor falling in love with a statue of his own creation.

3.Kanjin-chô (Le passage de la frontière). This was a piece of kabuki repertory

written to Ichigawa DanjurÇ VII. But scholars are unanimous that this

performance can not be described as a real kabuki performance131

4.Kage-no-Chikara (La Providence cachée), a highly melodramatic piece with

lots of sword fights ending with a seppuku.132

The collage was tailored for Western audiences, both European and American,

128 Shionoya 1986, 71. At this point, women were allowed on the stage with men in Japan. Shingeki had eventually changed the situation, and the first school for actresses had been founded by the Kawakamis in 1909.

129 Denny, 7.5.30 Le Soir; Larchin, Paris Presse 27.4.30.

130 Rondel Re 2407 (2).

131 Shionoya 1986, 70, Pronko, 123.

132 In the second programme there was another medieval war drama from the kabuki repertory, Banzuin Kobei (i.e. Benzen Kobei), but there are no press reviews on this. Perhaps it wasn't performed after all?

60

since the group was on its way from the United States. The emphasis was on

mimed and danced pieces even if spoken text had more room than in the

Kawakami and Hanako productions. Critics mentioned the subordination of word

to gestures133 and made references to ballet and pantomime134 Above all, Tsutsui

trusted in the flashy combat scenes.

Ces hautes vertus qui forment, pour nous, l'apport le plus précieux de nos hôtes

japonais se manifestent surtout dans les danses proprement dites, mais aussi dans les

cérémonies saisissants et splendides simulacres de combat.135

In addition to regular press reviews, the visit inspired some longer articles by

writers who had already seen kabuki and other traditional theatre performances

in Japan136. Their reaction was favourable even if they pointed out the differences

between Tsutsui and the "real" kabuki.

Charles Dullin was one who saw the performance and wrote about it in

Correspondance, the monthly publication of l'Atelier137. He writes of having

always been interested in old Japanese theatre forms and having used them to

confirm his theories of theatre. This is what he wrote about the Nihon-Geki-

KyÇkai performance:

A d=autres moments certains gestes s'imposent comme les gestes rituels d'un officiant.

Le corps de l'acteur japonais n'est pas seulement souple comme celui du plus habile

des danseurs, mais il semble façonné par le théâtre et pour le théâtre.

Ils doivent beaucoup aux marionettes et aux masques. Cette forme élevée de l'art

dramatique leur a laissé des traces profondes.

C'est sans doute grâce à elle qu'ils ont appris à se servir de leur corps comme moyen

133 Larchin, Paris Presse 27.4.30.

134 Strowski, Paris-Midi 2.5.30.

135 Levinson, Candide 22.5.30.

136 Yamata, Le Figaro 4.5.30; Denny, Soir 7-9.5.30, Laut, Le Monde Illustrée 10.5.30.

137 Dullin 1930, 33-35.

61

d'expression souvent plus éloquent que le visage.138

There is no indication that Étienne Decroux knew about the visits of the

Kawakami group or Hanako, which took place in his early childhood and youth.

References to these earlier visitors were made in the press during the visit of the

Tsutsui group but there is no knowledge if Decroux read about or saw the

Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai performance. We can, however, speculate that it is unlikely

that he would have been completely unaware of it, being already a member of

Dullin's l'Atelier and considering how much media attention the visit received. If

Decroux happened to see the performance, he certainly did not rush to write an

enthusiastic article, like Artaud after seeing the Balinese dance group, - even if,

judging from Dullin=s article, there were elements in the performance which could

have been in accordance with his budding theories of mime, namely the comment

on the difference between the gestures of dancers and actors and the discussion

on the influence of the mask and marionettes on physical expression, and that the

body can be a more eloquent means of expression than the face - or as Dullin

concludes: "Le visage est rarement à l'échelle du théâtre"139.

2.2.3. French Performances à la japonaise

In 1927, Firmin Gémier organised an International Theatre Festival in Paris and

produced a modern kabuki play, Shuzenji Monogatari or Le Masque by Kido

Okamoto, for it. The play, written in 1909, tells about an old mask maker who

carves a mask with a look of death and which eventually causes the death of his

daughter. A great part of the play tells about the artist's sorrow for losing his

138 Dullin 1930, 35.

139 Dullin 1930, 35.

62

daughter. Most of the second act consisted of a village festival and was made up

almost entirely of dance and mime. Gémier himself played the role of the mask

maker, Yashao, and was in charge of the production but, what is more

interesting, he also used Japanese artists and actors in it. The stage design, the

costumes, the mise en scène were done by a Japanese artist, Æmori Keisuke.140

and the cast included several Japanese actors who helped the other actors in their

movements141. It should be noted that Gémier was not the first director to use

Japanese consultation. Already in 1910, Lugné-Poe had staged L'Amour de Késa

and consulted a Japanese writer, Kikuchi Yuho when preparing it142.

Le Masque was performed only from June 24 to June 27 at the Comédie des

Champs-Elysées and both Gémier's acting and the whole production got

favourable reviews143. Pronko sees this performance as important because of its

honesty and authenticity; for him it was finally a Western performance of

Japanese theatre which did not succumb to false, music-hall japonisme which, in

his opinion, had found its way, for example, to André Antoine's direction of Paul

Anthelme's adaptation of Chãshingura or l'Honneur Japonais, at the Odéon

theatre in 1912. It is interesting that Pronko144 criticises Antoine's production

harshly whereas Shionoya145 gives a very positive report of it - never mentioning

that Antoine was the director, though.

There is no evidence that Le Masque was seen by Decroux, but again it is

possible that he heard about it. In spite of the short run, it did not go unnoticed in

140 Shionoya 1986, 65.

141 Pronko 1967, 126.

142 Shionoya 1986, 78.

143 Shionoya 1986, 65; Pronko, 127.

144 Pronko, 124-125.

145 Shionoya 1986, 81.

63

the press, and Gémier was, after all, one of the eminences of French stage. Jean-

Louis Barrault, who was seventeen in 1927, remembers that his mother

worshipped Gémier and took him to see some of Gémier=s performances in his

youth.146 There is no mention about Barrault seeing this particular one, though.

Nor does he mention the Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai performances which took place a

year before he entered the school of l=Atelier and joined Decroux in creating the

new mime.

At this point, it is necessary to proceed to an analysis of parallels between

traditional Japanese theatre forms and modern mime. First, the central concepts

and techniques of modern mime will be presented. After that comes a look at the

formative years of Decroux and the search for Japanese influences from that

period. The texts of Decroux and Barrault from the 1930s will be analysed next

by comparing their contents with the writings of Zeami and the martial arts

teacher Deshimaru Taisen. After a look at other contemporary mime and possible

Japanese influences in it, Decroux=s and Barrault=s work will be examined

through the different intercultural models presented earlier in this chapter.

146 Barrault 1974, 44.

64

IV. MODERN MIME

1. Theory and Techniques of Modern Mime

Since this study focuses on the 1930s, the formative decade of modern mime, the

primary source materials derive from the late 1920s, when Decroux started

experimenting with mime147, and the 1930s, when Jean-Louis Barrault

collaborated with Decroux before launching his own career in 1935. Some

exceptions to the timing of the sources are justifiable, especially when the

materials can be classified as reminiscences of the decade, either in interviews or

in autobiographies148. In many cases, it has also been necessary and clarifying to

look at and to refer to texts which were written by Decroux and Barrault later

than the 1930s, taking into account that they might include concepts and views

that were not fully formulated or particularly central in the 1930s. Texts that

contain views on Oriental theatre belong to this group, as well as certain

elaborations on the concepts of modern mime.

Modern mime was earlier defined a new genre because it differentiated itself from

19th century pantomime and its aesthetics which built on la commedia dell=arte-

derived characters and narrative storylines. Pantomime relied strongly on

mimicry, the facial expressions which were further emphasised with white make-

up. Hands were used to form conventional gestures, which the audience

deciphered and translated into sentences149. Modern mime, for its part, laid the

147 Leabhart 1989, 40. Decroux=s first attempt to form a mime group was in 1929.

148 This is not uncommon in the scholarship on modern mime. After all, both Decroux=s and Barrault=s careers were extremely long and the lines between the decades tend to get blurred. For example, Marco de Marinis uses some materials from the 1970s when dealing with Jacques Copeau's influence on Decroux in the 1920s (de Marinis 1997, 35).

149 A simple example would be the sentence >I love you= which would be expressed by the mime first pointing at her/himself, then placing her/his hands on her/his heart, and

65

emphasis on total corporeal training and expression in which the expressive

organs of the body were in hierarchy. In this hierarchy, torso was the most

important part, then came the arms and limbs, and only then the face150. Human

body would be treated as a keyboard in which each muscle could be >played=

separately.151 In this mime corporel (corporeal mime), face was covered with a

neutral mask and conventional gestures were strictly avoided. Linear narrative

was not considered important. Sculptural image and its evocations were more

essential than storyline, and thus this new mime was also called mime statuaire

(sculptural mime).

The three most important technical concepts of modern mime, developed by

Étienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault, are le contrepoids (counterweight or

counterbalance), le raccourci (foreshortening), and l=attitude (attitude). Le

contrepoids refers to the muscular work of a mime and is the technique that

makes the invisible visible. A simple example of the le contrepoids is miming the

lifting of a heavy suitcase:

- - the tendency of most performers is to feel kinesthetically the effort involved in

counter-balancing the weight of the bag. In every case, the inexperienced mime

will tend to raise the shoulder - -. As a matter of fact, of course, the shoulder

should be lowered, pulled down by the weight of the imaginary bag.152

Le raccourci refers to the technique which distills out the essence of the

movement. Movement is condensed or shortened to its barest minimum,

following the principle of eliminating all that is not essential for understanding it.

For example:

finally pointing to the object of her/his emotion.

150 Decroux 1977, 89. Felner 1985, 60.

151 Decroux 1973, 32-33. Felner sees this concept of keyboard analoguous to Craig=s idea of Über-marionette (Felner 1985, 64).

152 Graves 1958, 103.

66

AThe part of the body that is first concerned will be the part of the body to move

first.@ If you hear a sound in real life, you turn to look at it. In mime, we move the

ear closer to the source of the sound.153

The third concept, l=attitude, goes beyod a mere technique:

L=attitude supports le contrepoids and le raccourci by providing an emotional and

intellectual frame of reference for each physical action. Without l=attitude the

physical illusions based on le contrepoids and le raccourci would be nothing more

than purely technical excercises.154

L=attitude is a result of fixing the body or parts of the body in a momentarily held

pose, and can be called Athe primary stylistic device in corporeal mime@155

According to Decroux and Barrault, modern mime was an independent art form,

different from theatre and dance, and it did not use such elements as music,

costumes and stage design, i.e. it was mime pure (pure mime). Vocal sounds,

however, could be used and were nearly always present.156 Unlike 19th century

pantomime, modern mime was to be serious art in which silence and abstraction,

along with corporeality, were the key elements. The terms >objective mime= and

>subjective mime= were used to clarify this aspect. >Objective mime= dealt with the

objective reality and, with refined techniques of the body movement (i.e. le

contrepoids and le raccourci) made the invisible objects visible and actions

understandable. Even if this illusion was built solely with total corporeal

expression, it was the area which linked it to the tradition of pantomime157.

153 Decroux 1978, 39. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

154 Alberts 1989, 90.

155 Wylie 1994, 190.

156 Leabhart 1989, 47.

157 Barrault 1949, 62.

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>Subjective mime=, for its part, dealt with various mental states which were

translated into corporeal expression. Barrault gives the following example of

subjective mime:

An example of subjectivity would be if I were to climb a tree, give the idea that I

wanted to raise myself up, and once there, become a tree. At that point, poetry

begins and one becomes a tree.158

Subjective mime aimed to be

a purely modernist invention, and probably (sic!) did not exist in the nineteenth

century, just as modern dance, also concerned in this way with 'states of the soul

translated into bodily expression' did not exist before Isadora, Ruth StDenis and Ted

Shaw.159

The pictures taken of performers of subjective mime actually resemble pictures

taken of performers of modern dance, as Eric Bentley=s observations on reactions

to the photos taken of Decroux=s Le Combat antique show:

Most people to whom I have shown the pictures have immediately thought of dance

movements. They think of Decroux in the last two photos as soaring - probably to

music. Quite the opposite is the case. The steady flow, the regular rhythmic pulse

of dance (I speak in this chapter of traditional dance and not of Miss Graham=s

dancing) is not present. The movements are sudden and irregular and earth-bound

like those of life.160

158

Weiss 1979, 9.

159 Leabhart 1989, 63.

160 Bentley 1953, 188. Bentley=s book contains pictures of Decroux in Le Combat antique. The resemblance to dance can also easily be observed, for example, in Étienne Bertrand Weill=s pictures of Decroux miming Meditation in 1957 (The Mime Journal 7-8, 1978, 24-28).

68

It is symptomatic that, even if he sees and knows the difference between

corporeal mime and dance, Bentley still makes a clarifying note when it comes to

modern dance - in this case, to the art of Martha Graham. Modern mime seems

to invite some identity problems, especially when it moves completely to the level

of subjective mime. Borderline cases with the domain of modern dance, that

moved to abstraction and non-linear structures with ease, but would also use

earth-bound movements, are inevitable.

It seems evident, though, that one of the key elements of mime, both historical

and modern, is the innate realism, the desire to make the invisible visible,

concrete and understandable for the audience. It could be said that, in order to be

mime, the performance has to create a more equal relation to the audience than

what is the case in a dance performance. AThe audience of mime has

responsibilities - it must be an alert collaborator@161, writes the mime Angna

Enters. This does not mean that the audience should spend the entire

performance deciphering gestures and movements:

Mime is not a puzzle to be decoded by the audience, but rather a way for the

spectator to recognize something basic in his experience and to relive it through the

movement of the performer. 162

In a way, the division of mime into objective and subjective mime is extremely

revealing. Modern mime seems to be in its element when it moves in the axis of

the objective and the subjective, alternating between the concrete and the

abstract. Kathryn Wylie divides the history of mime into shamanistic and satyric

tradition163 but this is a slightly heavy-handed categorisation. Mime, both

161 Enters 1965, 129.

162 Lust 1974, 17.

163 Wylie 1994. According to Wylie, such forms as ancient Greek mime, the commedia dell=arte and the work of Jacques Lecoq belong to the satyric tradition, whereas forms like ancient Roman pantomime, nÇ theatre, and Decrouvian mime belong to the shamanistic tradition.

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historical and modern, is essentially an art form that combines the shamanistic

and the satyrical, the serious and the grotesque. Another interesting trend is that

whenever mime or pantomime is >rediscovered= or >renovated=, there seems to be

a tendency to emphasize the seriousness, i.e. the shamanistic nature of the art.164

It is tempting to compare the objective mime-subjective mime division to the

semiotic division of signs into icons and symbols. Icons, as concrete

representations of the object, seem clearly related to objective mime. Symbols,

and also metaphors, belong to the domain of subjective mime. It should be

admitted here that Decroux himself does not wish to talk about signs. He prefers

to talk about analogies:

Mime does not, however, resort to symbols or signs to portray concrete objects or

gestures as do Hindu dancers with their mudras or deaf-mutes with their sign

language.165

Modern mime is interested in objects only if they can serve as metaphors, he

nevertheless specifies.166

An interesting step towards subjective mime is the previously mentioned mime

statuaire (sculptural mime) which is strongly based on the use of l=attitude.167

Auguste Rodin=s ideas on the art of sculpture can be found in Decroux=s theories:

he revered the idea of a statue which was motionless yet bursting with

movement.168

164 For a more detailed history of mime and pantomime, focusing especially in this

aspect, please consult Appendix 1.

165 Lust 1974, 17.

166 Decroux 1960. Notes of Eichenberg.

167 Felner 1985, 65.

168 Wylie 1994, 192-193.

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Systematisation, codification, 'scientific'169 approach and technical exactitude are

evident in Decroux's and Barrault's work on mime. Especially Decroux's life-long

insistence on the purity of mime brings to mind an astute search for elements.

Against this background, it is logical that his work did take place in laboratory-

like circumstances, among a devoted group of collaborators and students.

>Neutrality= is another concept that appears prominently in Decroux's theories.

Such concepts as >neutral mask= or >neutral walk= reflect a desire to get to the

essence of expression. Pursuit for the rational and the neutral is at its clearest in

one of the four basic character types that Decroux developed, namely in the Man

of the Drawing Room (homme de salon)170 which, according to Wylie, represents

the highest ideals of Western rationalism171

Search for the essence of phenomena was already found to be in alignment with

the ideology of modernism, and the work of Decroux and Barrault can thus be

seen as part of this continuum. When it comes to system building and

constructing coherent aesthetics of physical expression, we can trace yet another

continuum in the history of French mime. For example, there were individuals

among le Cercle Funambulesque, a group of late 19th century French

pantomime enthusiasts, who called for Aa dictionary of gesture@172. And even

earlier, at the turn of 18th and 19th centuries, the French ballet master Georges

Noverre built a system of pantomime on the basis of his interpretations of the

169 Felner 1985, 54. Soum 1997, 16. Decroux prefers to speak about >geometric spirit=

rather than >scientific spirit=. Decroux 1978 (Interview by Vernice Klier).

170 The other three character types were: Man of Sport (homme de sport), Man of Dreams (homme de songe), and the Marionette. Again, as an entity, these were introduced later than in the 1930s to Decroux theories, even though, for example, the sport movements were in his training and repertory from the very start.

171 Wylie 1994, 183.

172 Hugounet 1889, 245. The gestures in this context refer to the conventional

gestures of 19th century pantomime, but it seems that Decroux had similar dreams: he envisioned a vocabulary of movements that could be transmitted to students (Felner 1985, 58).

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ancient Roman pantomime173. Much later than in the 1930s, Decroux actually

called Noverre Aa brother@, and expressed a wish to write more about his

contribution to mime.174 Even if Decroux, and also Barrault, draw a clear line

between dance and modern mime, the classical ballet and its rigorous training

system influenced Decroux deeply:

The stance of the corporeal mime performer, the use of basic positions for the

unfolding movement, and the geometric paths followed by the body in space reveal

the strong influence of the techniques and aesthetics of classical ballet.175

An example of a coherent theory of mime is presented in Charles Aubert=s L'Art

mimique. Suivi d'un traité de la pantomime et du ballet176 which was published

in 1901. It is somewhat surprising that this work has not caught the attention of

scholars of modern mime. Neither do Decroux and Barrault refer to it in their

respective writings. Yet Aubert=s work is an interesting borderline case between

old pantomime and modern mime, and it is revealing to compare its message to

Decroux=s and Barrault=s Atruly modern abstract pantomime@177, which they

developed thirty years later. The areas to be looked at are: nature of movement,

expressive use of different parts of the body, role of l=attitude, le contrepoids and

173 More about Noverre=s theories in Appendix 1.

174 Decroux refers to Noverre in the forewords of the English translation of Paroles sur le mime: ANoverre who was born in Paris in 1727 and died in 1810, was primarily a dancer. But he worked with both theory and practice to build up a type of pantomime the character of which had previously been unknown@ (Decroux 1985, 154). He never got to write more about Noverre, though.

175 Wylie 1994, 184.

176 Aubert 1901, 5. The book was translated to English in 1927 and entitled The Art of

Pantomime in spite of the special meaning that British English has for the word >panto- >mime=. It might have been more accurate to translate the French word >pantomime= to >mime=.

177 Wylie 1994, 175.

72

le raccourci, and the idea of language and grammar in the body language - and

influences of traditional Japanese, or possibly any other form of Eastern theatre.

Like Decroux and Barrault, Aubert is convinced of the importance of mime in

actor training and strongly critical about 19th century pantomime. He is also

concerned about the lack of both adequate courses and the scarcity of theoretical

literature on pantomime178. Aubert shares Decroux's distaste for white-face

pantomime and states that characters derived from la commedia dell'arte

tradition should be discarded. Real life offers better characters for mime179. This

is clearly something Decroux could have agreed with. Aubert's dislike for white-

face extends to a dislike for all kinds of masks. It can be assumed that Aubert

means various kinds of character masks. Decroux's neutral mask or veiled face,

which has the advantage of giving the actor a possibility to portray sentiments

without being ridiculous180, seems to reflect similar distaste.

The key word in Aubert's pantomime is action, and his definition for the art is: "la

pièce de théâtre jouée en langage d'action"181. He does not claim movements'

priority to action, which Felner considers one of the important signs of

modernism in mime182, but sees all movements of the actor as part of acting.

Aubert further divides dramatic movements into five categories: action

movements, character movements, instinctive movements, descriptive or

speaking movements, and complementary movements. Complete dramatic

178 Aubert 1901, 5. The pantomime classes were introduced to the Conservatoire by Georges Wague in 1916.

179 Aubert 1901, 203. This brings into mind Jacques Copeau=s desire to create modern

commedia dell=arte characters.

180 Decroux 1978, 31. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

181 Aubert 1901, 11.

182 Felner 1985,

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expression requires at the same time posture, gesture and facial expression183.

Here we, indeed, find a difference to the ideas of Decroux and Barrault who

wanted to diminish the role of face as a relevant means of expression. According

to Aubert, emotions are portrayed mainly by facial expressions while Barraut and

Decroux would seek to express emotions by l=attitude. Nevertheless, Aubert

emphasises that it is definitely not enough to make gestures and grimaces but

that, in the language of action, every part of the body should be controlled184.

Hands are another interesting aspect. Using them was for Decroux and Barrault

as '19th century' as using facial expressions. For Aubert, hands are important in

descriptive or speaking movements constructed to express thoughts, needs, and

wishes or to indicate a place or direction. Aubert is concerned about the

impossibility of handling an object which is not on stage or referring to a person

who has not yet appeared on stage. References to past and future actions are

another problematic area for him. When it comes to absent objects, Decroux=s

and Barrault=s le contrepoids does, indeed, offer a solution. The more abstract

concepts Decroux and Barrault would try to deal with in subjective mime, on a

level which went beyond the 'gesticulation' with hands.

For Aubert, characterisations consist mainly of postures185 or attitudes186. There

are similarities between Decroux's and Barrault's concept of l'attitude and

Aubert's concepts of posture or attitude. For example, Felner considers l=attitude

to express both pose and mood, and also to be the basis of all characterisation in

modern mime187.

183 Aubert 1901, 12.

184 Aubert 1901, 9.

185 Aubert 1901, 12.

186 Aubert 1901, 11. Aubert uses the terms >attitude= and >posture= interchangeably.

187 Felner 1985, 59.

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Aubert's system sees mime as a language which, in many ways, has to be

translated from spoken language to language of action, including the admission

that all things cannot be expressed by mime. Neither Decroux nor Barrault would

subscibe the idea of direct translation. Nevertheless, they also take up the

question on the grammar of mime. According to Barrault, modern mime is a

language comparable to verbal language and has the basic grammar:

subject verb object

attitude movement indication

The corresponding parts of body are for subject, the torso, i.e. the spinal column

and the respiratory system, and for object and indication, the limbs. With this

grammar the mime's body can be said to write a silent sentence in the space.188

For Aubert, verbs are the key grammatical concepts in mime. Substantives

transform into verbs, as do most of the adjectives and also those adverbs which

yield to be expressed without words189 .

Aubert does not swear for the purity of mime, i.e. reluctance to combine mime

with other theatrical elements. He is willing to combine mime with music - with

caution, so that the result will not be ballet-pantomime - as well as with props

and natural sounds. His central idea, after all, is to prove how mime can enhance

the actor's art in a regular theatre production. However, he thinks that speech

should definitely not be combined in those mimed sections which are used in a

regular play190. The reason for using mime is that it can reach levels which cannot

be reached by words: the emotional, the sensational, the dreamlike191.

188 Barrault 1949, 35-36.

189 Aubert 1901, 192.

190 Aubert 1901, 221.

191 Aubert 1901, 174. This line of thought occurs already in 19th century symbolism, as well as in the later théâtre du silence, which was inspired by Freud=s psychoanalysis.

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In addition to the mime used in theatre performances, Aubert also envisions a

new, independent mime which shall resemble animated pictures, and in which the

characters will be living statues. These productions would be entirely different

from plays and theatre192. The similarity to Decroux's and Barrault=s theories in

this respect is clear and striking.

A brief look at Charles Aubert=s ideas, published thirty years before Decroux and

Barrault started experimenting with modern mime, shows that they were by no

means the first 20th century theorists to ponder mime=s role in actor training and

to call for the renovation of mime. The areas in which Decroux and Barrault

clearly went further were the whole process of practical experimentation,

playing-down of the importance of facial expression and the use of hands, and

discovery of a technique for bringing invisible objects on stage with the help of le

contrepoids, and, finally, an attempt to deal with abstract entities through

subjective mime.

Aubert=s book is a valuable and interesting contribution to the history of modern

mime but it has to be concluded that there are no direct references to any form of

Eastern theatre in it. It is time to have a closer look at the formative years of

modern mime, especially the influence of Jacques Copeau=s École du Vieux-

Colombier where Decroux studied and Charles Dullin=s Théâtre de l=Atelier

where both Decroux and Barrault acted and experimented during the first years

of the 1930s. Their texts written during this period will also be analysed. Perhaps

we can find the AOriental trail@ from these sources. For comparison, the

contemporary mime and the possible Japanese or Eastern influences in it will be

looked at as well.

192 Aubert 1901, 175.

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2. The Influence of the Vieux-Colombier on Modern Mime

2.1. The Formative Years at l=École and with les Copiaus

The origins of Decroux's theories can be traced back to training and research

conducted at Jacques Copeau's Vieux-Colombier school in the 1920s. There are

several documents pertaining to this period193, and merely an overview on the

most crucial aspects is presented here.

Étienne Decroux entered the Vieux-Colombier school as a part-time student to

improve his skills as a political orator in 1923. The school was then divided into

two sections, the first being devoted to the students whom Copeau planned to

train as the first generation of 'ideal actors'. The second section offered courses

for general public194. In addition to studying diction, Decroux took his first,

rudimentary lessons on physical expression under the guidance of Copeau's

daughter, Marie-Hélène Dasté195. However, the real revelations in mime for him

were the end-of-the-semester performances of the professional section of the

school in 1924.

An indisputable Vieux-Colombier influence on Decroux's 'mime-to-be' were

exercises called les masques, which were short, speechless sketches performed

wearing a neutral mask and nearly without clothes. These were directed and

193 Dorcy 1961; Felner 1985; de Marinis 1980 and 1997.

194 The school was established in 1921 and operated in connection with the Vieux-Colombier theatre. Heads of the first section were Suzanne Bing and Copeau himself. The second section was headed by Jules Romains.

195 Dorcy 1961, 43. Marie-Hélène Dasté was a member of the Vieux-Colombier theatre company. Her husband, Jean Dasté, was also a member of the company and performed later in Barrault's first mime productions. Dorcy himself was in charge of the physical training of the professional section of the school.

77

developed by Suzanne Bing and the students. The goal of these exercises was,

first, to train the body to parallel and support whatever might otherwise be

communicated vocally and, second, to give actor a means of expression, a

physical instrument that is independent of dialogue196.

On mimait des actions modestes: un homme taquiné par une mouche, veut s'en

défaire; une femme déçue par la tireuse de de cartes, l'étrangle, un métier, un

enchaînement de mouvements de machine. Le jeu tendait à la lenteur du ralenti de

cinéma. - - On reproduisait les bruits de la ville, de la maison, de la nature, le cri des

animaux. Cela avec la bouche, les mains, les pieds.197

Decroux could not perform in these because he had studied at the school only a

year but he writes that these were the very exercises that inspired him to start to

develop the new mime198. It can also be emphasized that 19th century pantomime

was not on the curriculum of Copeau's school. It was not a theatre form that

would have inspired Copeau, as it would not inspire Decroux either. Copeau's

work went already beyond the linear narrative of 19th century pantomime199.

Use of a neutral mask would appear in Decroux's theories, as would the nearly

nude body. Neutral mask would also remain in Decroux's mime, while the Vieux-

Colombier excercises eventually started introducing more character masks.

Nudism, in addition to being a popular movement during the period, served also

the aesthetic goals of Decroux.

196 Angotti-Herr 1974.

197 Decroux 1977, 18.

198 Decroux 1977, 18 and 33. Also in Decroux 1973, 29. Interview by Leabhart.. The circus and acrobatic skills were also taught at the Vieux-Colombier school but there is no indication that Decroux would have been enthusiastic about these. Neither does he make references to the Montessori based excercises that Suzanne Bing introduced to the curricula. Whereas, miming of myths, which was linked to their more academic studies of Greek culture could have had some influence on Decroux's future work, for example Le Combat antique.

199 Felner 1985, 47.

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Retrouvent le geste naturel, libéré des contraintes morales où la religion chrétienne

l'avait enfermé, le corps apparâit dans sa nudité avec les exercises du stade et de plein

air, quittant peu à peu un mode vestimentaire qui l'étouffait.200

At the Vieux-Colombier, there were strict preparation rites which preceeded les

masques. Jean Dorcy describes these excercises, which aimed to induce an inner

peace before proceeding to the mask work. They included breathing, conscious

inhaling and exhaling, relaxation, and clearing of the mind using something of a

mantra201.

Decroux did not become a "full-time student" until Copeau had closed the school

in May 1924 and moved to the country (Morteuil) with a group of fifteen

devotees, to be called les Copiaus. This was, no doubt, a turning point for

Decroux. It was also an important training period for other actors who would be

influental and visible in the 1930s theatrical life.

Les Copiaus lasted until 1929. Decroux stayed with the group only for half a

year - he left the company at the end of February 1925202. There are very few

references to him in the journal du bord notes edited by Denis Gontard. For

November 4, 1924, it is mentioned that he worked, along with other new

students, on diction and dramatic exercises with Suzanne Bing. John Rudlin

writes about the first productions:

The pieces were composed by different means: for L'Objet, Copeau had the actors

improvise in the living room (their only rehearsal space) while he watched. He would

then restage and shape the action and write down the dialogue. A "comedy-ballet"

emerged, linking sketches for an object (which turned out to be a jazz tune, to which

the play ended in a dance). L'Impôt, on the other hand was adapted by Copeau from a

200 Lecoq 1989, 59.

201 Felner 1985, 44-45.

202 Gontard 1974, 67.

79

piece by Pierre de L'Estoile concerning a poor man who tried to keep the king's

adviser from drinking his beer by drinking it all himself.203

There is no mention about Decroux in the cast of L'Objet. In L'Impôt he played

the role of M. Gourd204. Many of les Copiaus performances were collective

improvisations and the emphasis was on equal group work, not on individual

performers. Comedy and farce were close to Copeau's heart and theatrical

principles. In this recpect, it is actually interesting to notice the emphasis on

tragedy and the serious in the work of Decroux and Barrault.

The journal du bord reports that one month before Decroux left the company, in

January 1925, he performed with it in Lille. Decroux's involvement with the

Vieux-Colombier school and the subsequent les Copiaus period was very short

compared to many who were to be active in theatre and also in the field of mime

in the 1930s, most notably la Compagnie des Quinze and its individual members,

such as Léon Chancerel, Marie-Hélène and Jean Dasté. Yet, the Vieux-

Colombier is the first on Marco de Marinis' list of the early influences in

Decroux's development. The other influences listed by de Marinis are: the

theories of Gordon Graig; sculpture and poetry with their plasticity, aesthetism

and formal rigour; classical dance; physical sports; different kinds of manual

labour; and - Far Eastern theatre, especially nÇ 205. Some of these can be seen

having filtered to Decroux=s art through the Vieux-Colombier as well. For

example the writings of Gordon Graig, classical dance, and the role of physical

training were important parts of the Vieux-Colombier training system.

Obviously, the reference to Far Eastern theatre and nÇ in particular is interesting

for this study. It is also worth pointing out that even if de Marinis lists the

203 Rudlin 1986, 8.

204 Gontard 1974, 53. There is no further description on this role.

205 de Marinis 1980, 17-20. Decroux had varied experiences in manual labour which would later show in his mime pieces. Examples of manual labour are often used in mime - so, there is nothing particularly original in this.

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influence of Vieux-Colombier separately from the influence of Far Eastern

theatre and nÇ, he does not refer to any other sources of Oriental theatre that

Decroux would have been exposed to206. Thus this aspect would also belong to

the influences filtered through the Vieux-Colombier.

Furthermore, even if de Marinis writes about Far Eastern theatre and nÇ, there is

actually no indication that the Vieux-Colombier would have experimented with

any other Far Eastern theatre form than nÇ207. Thus a close look at the

production of Kantan, a nÇ play rehearsed at the Vieux-Colombier school and

Decroux=s reaction to it is most important.

2.2. Kantan - the nÇ play

Arthur Waley's English translations of Japanese nÇ plays were published in 1921.

John Rudlin writes that Suzanne Bing studied these and the writings of Noël Péri,

the French scholar, in the summer of 1923.208 As a result of this, it seemed clear

that nÇ was a form that included many of the things which they had been working

on by themselves: chorus work, singing, mime, dance, recitation of poetry, music

and mask work, all, furthermore, played on a bare wooden floor209.

206 de Marinis 1980, 20. Decroux himself refers to a whole Acourse on Japanese Noh that was quite well done@ which would have been taught at l=École du Vieux-Colombier (Decroux 1973. Interview by Leabhart, 29) but there are no other similar references.

207 If desired, one could see some similarities to kyÇgen farces from the above-mentioned play L'Impôt. Drunken servants or underdogs trying to get the best over the arrogant representatives of authority are as common in kyÇgen as in commedia dell'arte.

208 Interestingly, it seems that neither Bing nor Copeau consulted the Pound-Fenollosa book which was published in 1916. Neither does Rudlin indicate that they knew about Yeats's expreriments with nÇ.

209 Rudlin 1986, 48. Thomas Leabhart mentions that Copeau translated Kantan into French from Waley's version (Leabhart 1989, 30-31).

81

Suzanne Bing's contribution to the project was crucial, even if there is no doubt

about Copeau initiating it and his interest in nÇ. For instance, Leonard Pronko

refers to Copeau=s unpublished notes on Asian theatre210, and mentions that the

group was surprised to find so much similarity between the dramatic principles

and Copeau's theories211 - and in 1926 he certainly did write to Paul Claudel:

- - J'ai la plus grande impatience de lire votre étude sur le Nô. Depuis longtemps je me

suis approché de cette forme sublime. Je l'ai étudiée autant qu'on peut le faire dans les

livres que nous possédons en français et en anglais. Elle m'a beaucoup influencé et je

m'en suis inspiré dans le travail que je fais faire à mes jeunes élèves.212

Waley's book contains 19 nÇ plays and one kyÇgen text. One of them, Kantan,

was selected and the group worked on it for a year. John Rudlin indicates that it

was Suzanne Bing, not Copeau, who selected the play.

Bing, perhaps surprisingly, chose a fifth category Noh play (---) for them to work on.

Other categories offer more obvious dramatic qualities for a first occidental encounter,

but it was judged that the students were not yet ready for warrior's ghosts, demons and

madwomen.213

Indeed, Kantan does not have any of these elements. The play is a simple story

based on a Chinese fable, about a young man, Rosei, who is on his way to the

world. He stops at an inn, falls asleep on a sage's magic pillow which in a dream

shows him how his life is going to turn out. He wakes up and concluding that all

wordly success is futile, returns to his home village.

210 Pronko 1967, 89.

211 Pronko, 1967, 90. Thomas Leabhart, again gives very inaccurate information. He writes (Leabhart 1989, 21) that the Waley book influenced to Copeau's idea of tréteau nu. How could it have - tréteau nu was launched more than ten years before Waley's book was published!

212 Claudel 1966a, 146.

213 Rudlin 1986, 49.

82

The play is usually attributed to Zeami - although there is no definite certainty on

his authorship - who made some changes to the original story,

The "sage" is eliminated, and in the dream Rosei immediately becomes Emperor of

Central China. This affords an excuse for the court dances which form the central

"ballet" of the piece. In the second half - - - the words are merely an accompaniment to

the dancing.214

First we are introduced to the hostess of the inn who informs about the location

and the magic of the pillow. Rosei enters, the hostess goes off to cook a meal.

Rosei falls asleep. In his dream he is fetched to the palace by an envoy and two

attendants carrying a litter. Then the chorus describes the splendours of the

palace where he enters. Also a boy dancer is present on stage, but he does not

start dancing until later, in the scene in which Rosei has already reigned fifty

years and celebrates with his court. The boy's Dream-dance inspires Rosei to

dance the gaku or Court Dance while having a dialogue with the Chorus. Rosei

wakes up, has his final dialogue with the Chorus which urges him to turn back

home. The play is over.

Because of an accident, this play was never performed in front of a full audience

but as an open rehearsal, and thus there are no reviews available. However, it is

reported that, even if Bing and the group never intended to create a nÇ

demonstration or imitate the style, the atmosphere of the performance reached a

great authenticity. The comments of the French writer André Gide and the

British director Henry Granville Baker, who both were present at the rehearsal,

are often used to support this claim.215 It should be said, that neither of these men

was a specialist in traditional Japanese theatre, and thus the impression of

authenticity merely indicates that Kantan corresponded with their orientalist

expectations or with their experiences on the performances of Japanese visitors in

214 Waley 1988, 193.

215 Shionoya 1986, 85; Bentley 1953, 259.

83

Europe. For example, Gide is reported to have admired Sadayacco=s

performances216. Nevertheless, later scholarship on the project shows that a

serious attempt to understand and respect the style of nÇ was involved.

Leonard Pronko has studied Suzanne Bing's notes on the Kantan project and

builds an analysis on these.217 He agrees that the group did not try to escape the

limits set by the nÇ style but confined itself to them. Because the nÇ speech is

declaimed and chanted, they transposed the natural rhythms and inflections to

music. Particularly lyrical or emotional moments were aided by the flute, while

two drums gave a natural rhythm which seemed to command the movement of

the actors and the very breathing of the spectators. Following the Japanese

practice, all solo parts were played by men. Nevertheless, there were some

women in the chorus which had an effect on the intonation and volume of it. An

assistant was on stage to hand the necessary props to the actors, arrange their

costumes, and perform all the functions assigned to a nÇ prop man. Faces were

kept impassive, gestures were slow and solemn. Pronko cites Suzanne Bing's

notes:

We enobled our postures, attempting to make of them a melody of noble and beautiful

poses, one engendering the next according to the logic of the drama. A little more

daring and obedience, and we composed the dances, one slower, another faster, as

required. The Noh actor must never forget that he is acting a poem. He must refuse to

call on facile personal emotion, which works directly on the emotion of the audience. -

- The Noh actor leaves the stage exhausted by this constraint.218

Most interesting is that Decroux was one of the few present at the rehearsal-

performance of Kantan, and it isnto excluded that, since the whole project lasted

216 Shionoya 1986, 85

217 Pronko 1967, 91-92.

218 Pronko 1967, 91-92.

84

for a year, he might have seen it in the process of making. The performance is

reported to have made a strong impression on him.

Decades later Decroux remembered this rehearsal as one of the most beautiful things

he had ever seen in the theatre. One could argue that it influenced the whole of

Decroux's subsequent work; years later, when he took over the school of the Piccolo

Teatro in Milan from Jacques Lecoq, he confided to Lecoq that he hoped to make the

students there move like Japanese actors.219

Unfortunately, Leabhart does not give any actual references for this interesting

speculation. Yet, in an interview conducted by Leabhart, Maximilien Decroux

sees that his father found Kantan 'admirable' and that he was always inspired by

it.220 In the same interview, Maximilien Decroux makes an interesting comment

on the students of the Vieux-Colombier school:

They studied things that professional actors did not know, among them the Japanese

Noh, from which, indirectly, mime came. - - It was impossible to find a professor of

Noh, so they did Noh based on what they recalled having seen five years earlier at the

Exposition Universelle. They did something completely different from Noh; they did

what would become mime.221

This statement has to be treated with caution. There is no other documentation

that would indicate that Copeau, Bing or any of the students involved saw a nÇ

performance at a World Exhibition. On the contrary, the biggest surprise for both

performers and the small audience of Kantan was how close to nÇ they managed

to get, without having any first-hand experience on it. There is actually no

evidence of a nÇ performance which would have taken place in 1919 in Paris. NÇ

was introduced to French audience at the Théâtre des nations festival in 1957222.

219 Leabhart 1989, 31-32.

220 Decroux, M. 1997, 54. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

221 Decroux, M. 1997, 54. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

222 Sieffert 1960, 8.

85

The only Japanese performer that the students might have seen was Hanako, who

was staying in Europe during the period, and her repertoire was far from nÇ223.

In Paroles sur le mime, Decroux writes about an inaudible spectacle, consisting

of mime and sounds:

Tranquille dans mon fauteuil, je vis un spectacle inouï. C'était du mime et des sons.

Le tout sans une parole, sans un maguillage, sans un costume, sans un jeu de lumière.

sans accessoires, sans meubles et sans décor. Le développement de l'action était assez

savant pour qu'on fît tenir plusieurs heures en quelques seconds et plusieurs lieux en

un seul. On avait simultanément sous les yeux le champ de bataille et la vie civile, la

mer et la cité.224

This comment is often seen to be about Kantan. For example, de Marinis makes

the connection in his earlier writings.

Decroux ricorda quindi l'enorme impressione suscitata in lui dallo spettacolo che gli

allievi organizzarono a fine corso, nel giugno del '24, e diedero solo in forma privata,

davanti a un publico ristretto. Si trattava della rappresentazione del Nô giapponese

Kantan, sul quale la scuola aveva lavorato per un anno intero.225

However, it is not clear if Decroux really refers to Kantan in his text. In an article

written in 1939, this comment is made immediately after he has described les

masques.226 His references to a play without words, make-up, and costumes or to

battlefields do not seem to fit to the description of Kantan. And, indeed, after a

careful reading of the text, Marco de Marinis has concluded that Decroux is not

writing this eulogy about Kantan but about another closed student performance,

which took place slightly later the same spring.

223 Hanako retuned to Japan in 1922.

224 Decroux 1977, 18.

225 de Marinis 1980, 18-19.

226 Decroux 1977, 18.

86

In it, the students performed vocal mime compositions which were "more

representative of the style and development of the school" - according to one of its

participants, Jean Dasté -- -as compared to the staging of the Japanese NÇ.227

This information does not invite to a conclusion that nÇ theatre would have had a

particularly profound influence on Decroux when he started his work on mime.

Yet, it is interesting to examine briefly if there are similarities between Suzanne

Bing's notes on the central elements of Kantan and Decroux's early writings228.

First of all, Kantan contains dialogue, even if it is veered towards stylised,

musical incantation. Decroux was strongly against mixing any alien arts, such as

speech, music or dance, with mime. Neither did he endorse the use of chorus, not

even if it would have been used, like in ancient Roman pantomime, to recite the

story which the mime performed corporeally. Props and costumes he tried to

omit as much as possible - the idea of using a prop man sounds most impossible.

The use of only male actors was not anything categorical for Decroux either. He

realised his first production with his wife and worked also with other female

performers. Eliane Guyon, for example, performed in the early productions.

Surely, some scholars have noticed certain masculinity in the corporeal mime:

Corporeal mime which is best suited to angular, androgenous, lightly muscled,

curveless, linear bodies, shows a clear preference for the masculine model of homo

clausus.229

This, however, cannot be considered a particularly domineering element in the

Decrouvian mime, unless we see the whole concept of >neutral= being closer to

227 de Marinis 1997, 29.

228 Please see Chapter IV.3.1.

229 Wylie 1997, 85. In this quotation, Wylie is examining Decroux in the context of classicism. The concept of homo clausus refers to the ideal of the civilised middle-classes of the 18th century.

87

the masculine than to the feminine. There is no indication that Decroux would

have evaluated male performers better or more suitable for corporeal mime than

female performers, or that he would have systematically desired to create any

sort of male or female impersonation in modern mime. As a conclusion, there

seem to be more differences than similarities between Decroux=s principles and

the production of Kantan.

However, there is no question that the Vieux-Colombier period was crucial for

Decroux=s development. In his recent elaborations, Marco de Marinis divides the

Vieux-Colombier influence on Decroux into two main levels, thematic and

technical. On the thematic level

- - almost all the numbers and mime plays of Decroux found their distant origin, even

as far as the subjects were concerned, in the exercises and dramatizations of the

Vieux-Colombier school.230

The most important themes were the trades and the machine. Those would later

appear in les Copiaus' performances in Burgundy, clearly before Decroux started

to develop them in the late 1920s231.

In addition to the thematic influence, the technical influence of the Vieux-

Colombier on Decroux=s work is considerable. de Marinis divides it into six

major areas:

1. covered face which leads to enhanced corporeal expression

2. transgessing the pantomimic convention of correspondence between words and gestures

3. work on the dynamic qualities of movement (for example, slow motion, jerky movements, sudden

immobilisations)

4. the principle of the articular and muscular interdependence of the body

230 de Marinis 1997, 35.

231 de Marinis 1997, 37. It could also be added that these were typical themes for the silent film of the time.

88

5. the raccourci, i.e. the compression of the action in space and time into its essential parts without

losing its comprehensibility and recognizability

6. the mime as one's own dramatist

Throughout his article, de Marinis builds his argumentation around Copeau's

influence on Decroux, first challenging it and then eventually admitting the

influence, stating that Copeau was "the father, or at least one of the fathers of

contemporary mime - - without wanting to be - in spite of himself"232.

Interestingly, de Marinis mentions Suzanne Bing only in passim - in a

footnote.233 Yet, I would like to emphasise that the excercises that influenced

Decroux most were not guided or developed by Copeau but by Suzanne Bing -

and the group of students - and thus, for example, the genealogy of modern

French mime that Mira Felner234 presents should be questioned. This, in spite of

the fact that Suzanne Bing herself held a most devoted admiration towards

Copeau, le patron.

Decroux himself gives credit to Suzanne Bing in the beginning of his Paroles sur

le mime mentioning that she has been unduly forgotten and that without her,

there would not have been a school, only a chaos.235 He also mentions that

during his first year at the school he did not get a single lesson from Copeau236.

Barrault was aware of Decroux's early influences and also he mentions Suzanne

Bing:

232

de Marinis 1997, 34.

233 de Marinis 1997, 40.

234 Felner 1985, 49. The genealogy goes from Copeau via Decroux and Barrault to Marceau and Lecoq.

235 Decroux 1977, 13.

236 Decroux 1977, 15.

89

Les premières notions de mime, Decroux les tenait du Vieux-Colombier et

particulièrement de l'effort magnifique et désintéressé d'une femme à qui nous devons

beaucoup: Suzanne Bing. Decroux avait notamment étudié avec Suzanne Bing le jeu

du masque et il parlait de Suzanne Bing toujours avec respect et admiration.237

Perhaps we should call Suzanne Bing Athe mother of modern mime@. In addition

to playing an important role in developing les masques, her contribution to the

Kantan project was most crucial.

As seen, Marco de Marinis does not indicate other sources of the Far Eastern and

nÇ influences than the Vieux-Colombier and Kantan. Thomas Leabhart, for his

part, takes a broader view, referring to the influence of >primitive= cultures on

Decroux=s work. In this context, Leabhart writes about the influences that

Decroux got from Balinese and Cambodian dancers who performed in Paris.

Leabhart=s writing has to be challenged on two points. Firstly, it is totally wrong

to classify these performances as examples of primitive art - 'exotic' would be a

more accurate term. Secondly, Leabhart does not provide any evidence that

Decroux saw these performances and thus could have "incorporated certain

articulated movements"238 from them into his technique.

Leabhart writes also about the influence of the nÇ play, i.e. Kantan, on Decroux's

technique but does not give any details of the process. He presents these

influences matter-of-factly, without any concrete evidence. However, it seems

that Decroux, in later interviews spoke favourably about nÇ239. Returning to

Suzanne Bing's notes, such elements as impassive face, slow and solemn

gestures, use of noble poses, and constraint of emotion are some things in

237 Barrault 1949, 32.

238 Leabhart 1989, 41. The Balinese group performed in Paris but King Sisowath=s Cambodian dancers gave a public performance only in Marseille, at the Colonial Exhibition in 1906 when Decroux was eight! The group=s two Paris performances were arranged for a

restricted audience (Savarese 1988, 71).

239 Kusler Leigh 1979, 48; de Marinis 1997, 29.

90

Kantan that Decroux might basically have identified with. Thus it is too early to

discard the possible influences, at least before a more detailed look at Decroux=s

writings in the 1930s. These - or rather just one of the two articles that date back

to the 1930s - is compared to the central concepts of Zeami Motokiyo. Since we,

thus far, have found no other even potential influence of traditional Japanese

theatre on Decroux than nÇ and since Zeami is the most important writer on nÇ -

as well as the presumed writer of Kantan - this choice seems justifiable. Further

motivation for this approach is that, there is at least one scholar who claims to

find Aendless similarities@240 between Decroux=s mime theories and Zeami=s

witings. Also Barrault=s texts pertaining to the early years of modern mime will

be analysed in this context - but from a slightly different perspective.

3. The 1930s Texts on Modern Mime

3.1. Mime as a Remedy for Actor=s Art

Most of Decroux=s texts included in Paroles sur le mime are from the 1940s and

the 1950s. There are only two articles from the 1930s. The first one is a short

piece of memories from the Vieux-Colombier, which was originally published in

Le Théâtre et la Danse in July 1939. This article, in which Decroux, among other

things, writes about his impressions on the student performances of the Vieux-

Colombier, was already referred to in the previous chapter. In addition to this,

Paroles sur le mime contains an article by Decroux which is definitely written

before he started the collaboration with Barrault. It was originally published in

January 1931 in Gestes et Jeux, a publication of Jean Dorcy's Proscenium group

240 Wylie 1993, 111-112.

91

and is titled "Ma définition du théâtre"241. In it, Decroux is more concerned about

the art of the actor in general than about mime. Mime is, nevertheless, presented

as a remedy for the deteriorated state of the actor's art.

Decroux sees the actor as the only element that has never been missing in the

theatre. "Le théâtre, c'est l'art d'acteur", theatre is actor=s art, he writes. There is

nothing particularly new in this statement. Emphasis on the importance of the

actor in the theatre can be found from Jacques Copeau and Charles Dullin and,

indeed, from Charles Aubert. More original is Decroux=s opinion that, since the

actor's art is the essence of the theatre, all other arts are alien arts. To save the

theatre, all these alien arts must be banished from it for thirty years. During the

first ten years of this period, all stage structures that would help the actor should

be removed. For example, the actor has to be able to indicate his height without

any technical means.

During the first twenty years, all vocal sounds are forbidden. After that follows a

five year period of inarticulated sounds. Only during the last five years, the

speech is allowed and even then it must be created by the actor, not by the

playwright. After the thirty years, the plays will be created so that the actor

mimes the action, proceeding to sounds and finally to the improvisation of the

text which the playwright writes down. Only after this, alien arts are allowed to

the theatre. And strictly on the actor's terms.

It is easy to hear echoes from Craig=s and Artaud=s theories here. For Copeau and

the Cartel des Quatre directors, this remedy would have been too radical. None

of the French theatre renovators of the preceeding two decades would have

banished the text as categorically as Decroux in his early article did - however

deep their concern about the actor's art was. Nor would they have totally banned

the other, alien, elements, although Copeau with les Copiaus - perhaps in spite of

241 Decroux 1977, 37-43.

92

himself - got fairly close during the last years of the 1920s. It is not surprising,

however, that a decade later, in 1942, Gaston Baty criticised Decroux for over-

emphasizing the mimic element in the theatre. Decroux's response to this

criticism was, that only in those occasions when both verbal and mimic elements

were poor, they could be mixed in a performance242. It seems that in ten years

Decroux had softened his stance slightly: the thirty year=s period did not have

importance and mixing of the elements was possible, if not advisable. And

definitely controversial is, that in the 1940s he surprised the audiences with Les

Petits soldats, a mime play which contained singing and speech to the extent that

Maximilien Decroux compares it to musical comedy243. Yet the statements

against mixing the elements appear in Decroux=s thoughts still in the 1950s, as

can be read from Eric Bentley's article on the purism of Decroux244, and in 1962,

he still held the opinion that a play should be rehearsed before it was written, and

that the theatre was above all actor=s art.245

It should be remembered that he considered dance and music alien arts as well.

And however close especially les Copiaus and la Compagnie des Quinze, which

realized its first productions the same year as Decroux=s La Vie primitive was

performed for the first time, proceeded to create productions which based on

improvisation and a text of their own live-in-playwright, they would never have

met Decroux's purist standards. Dancing and music were an essential part of les

Copiaus and la Compagnie des Quinze productions - so much so that Decroux

commented them sarcastically246.

242 Decroux 1977, 49.

243 Decroux M.(1997), 51. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

244 Bentley 1953. The article on Decroux is included in Bentley's collection of essays, In Search of Theater, and written in 1950.

245 Decroux 1977, 43.

246 Decroux 1973, 31. Interview by Thomas Leabhart. AThey danced, of course they danced! But it does not constitute a revolution in the theatre to dance at the end of a play!@

93

There is one reference to Japanese theatre in Decroux=s article: he uses Japanese

nÇ as an example of theatre which does not indulge in stage design but produces

all acts and plays in the same set247. He does not elaborate the theme, though,

even if his emphasis on the work and importance of the actor would be in

accordance with the importance of the actor in traditional Japanese theatre. With

the exception that the Japanese actor, however good his physical skills, would

not leave dialogue, dance or music out of his art. When it comes to the

playwright=s position in traditional Japanese theatre, this was not particularly

strong in the earlier days. Classical texts were, indeed, to a great extent, created

by actors, but in the course of the history, also the task of the playwright became

its own profession.

3.2. The Secret Flower of Modern Mime

There are endless similarities between the art of the NÇ and corporeal mime: the

strict discipline based in imitation of a master teacher, which is begun at an early

age and continued throughout life; a method that demands self-abnegation and the

imposition of acquired technique in which the student must not merely imitate the

exterior form but must penetrate to the interior essence of a figure or movement to

discover the impulses from which it springs; the study of basic character types

(roles) that serve as models for the mastery of the techniques of imitation; the

Acooling down@ of emotion which is translated through technique in order to create

an impersonal expression of a universal emotion or idea; the importance of will,

distance and control as means to manipulate the body like a marionette; abstract

and symbolic movement patterns deriving from a movement aesthetic built upon

sculptural and architectural principles; a preference for attitude than for gesture;

the technique of precarious balance between forces of resistance and momentum;

the importance of economy of movement; the idea of transported immobility; the

247

Decroux 1977, 39.

94

tripartite structure of the movement phrase which closely parallels the elements of

diction in spoken language; and beauty as the highest goal of performance.248

Kathryn Wylie=s list of the similarities is long and impressive. When theories of

nÇ and their possible similarities with theories of modern mime are concerned, it

is natural to turn to the writings of Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443). In this context,

only three of Zeami=s treatises are looked at, namely Fãshikaden (Teachings on

Style and Flower, 1402), ShikadÇ (The True Path to the Flower, 1420) and

KakyÇ (A Mirror Held to the Flower, 1424). The first one because it is the best-

known and most often cited work of Zeami and the second and third because

they deal with the fundamentals of the actor=s art. Unlike Zeami=s later, more

esoteric and religious texts, these three are close to the physical training and the

practice of the art of nÇ.

The focus here is solely in pondering the parallels - the question whether

Decroux and Barrault actually were familiar with Zeami and his texts will be

dealt with later. In this comparison, the focus is also more in the theories of

Decroux than in those of Barrault, whose texts will be looked at from a slightly

different perspective.

While doubting the influence of Oriental theatre training on Decroux=s work,

more precisely the character type of Man of the Drawing Room, Kathryn Wylie,

nevertherless, sees that the aspiration towards this aristocratic character

epitomises Decroux=s quest for yãgen (Grace) that Zeami writes about in

KakyÇ249. For Zeami the way to start to create yãgen was, indeed, the imitation

of nobility250. As far as Decroux is concerned, this aspect remains slightly

248 Wylie 1993, 111-112.

249 Wylie 1993, 117.

250 Zeami 1984, 93 (KakyÇ).

95

controversial. Due to his socialist background and idealisation of manual labour,

the obvious elitism found in Zeami=s writings seems quite far from his ideologies.

Zeami=s revered patrons were the members of the nobility251, according to whose

tastes and presence the whole performance and its rhythmic pattern based on jo-

ha-kyã should be created252. In nÇ, the lower characters and their occupational

gestures should not be too realistic - or rather too naturalistic - to disturb the

sensitivity of the audience253. This kind of a sensitivity towards the audience was

alien to Decroux. Not only did he lack the desire to please the audience, but he

would actually go as far as attacking his audience for not understanding his

performances.254 Barba goes as far as speculating that perhaps Decroux=s mime

was made for a non-existent audience.255

Neither is the strong emphasis that Zeami places on starting the training from

early age and the analysis of the actor=s development, developing and preserving

the hana256, through the years similar to Decroux=s training. He did train his son,

Maximilien, for the trade, but normally his students started their training as

adults. Decroux never established a mime school for children.

251 Zeami 1984, 82-83 (KakyÇ). Surely, there were financial reasons behind this: the

nobility, namely the samurai elite of the time, was the most important patron of the nÇ companies. Ortolani also refers to theories which point out in Zeami=s writings there is a clear trait of wishing to improve the lowly status of the actors by tying the tradition of nÇ to Zen buddhism and the nobility that favoured this religion (Ortolani 1995, 87, 109).

252 Zeami 1984, 18 (Fãshikaden), 85-86 (KakyÇ).

253 Zeami 1984, 10 (Fãshikaden). Zeami admits that sometimes, when performing for

less sophisticated audiences, it is necessary to choose the style that this audience can appreciate (ibid. 41).

254 Dorcy 1961, 49.

255 Barba 1997, 13. Also, a student observed that, in the lack of public performances, certain sessions at Decroux=s school became wery much like rituals, open only for the initiates (Sklar 1985, 73).

256 A good practical definition for hana is >stage presence= (Chappell 1984, x).

96

Of the relationship between movement and text, Zeami has clear views, which are

quite opposite to Decroux=s who held that through the text, the actor would in

fact become the author=s slave.257 For Zeami, the text comes first: all the

movements and bodily postures depend on the text.258 Surely, the training of the

child actor is based on dancing, movement and chant 259 rather than the text -

after all chant and dance are the two basic arts to be trained260 - but in mature

acting, the chant and the voice come first, and only after that comes the

gesture261.

Certainly, there are also similarities between Zeami=s writings and the theories of

modern mime. For example, Zeami writes that when it comes to the highest level

of accomplishment, the deeply beautiful posture is a pre-requisite for yãgen262.

This evokes the importance laid on l=attitude in modern mime263, as does Zeami=s

notion that an actor=s concentration when apparently >doing nothing= actually

signifies that interval which exists between two physical actions. During this

moment, the inner tension is never relaxed.264 Zeami also writes that nÇ acting

should Afirstly use the body, secondly the hands, and thirdly the feet@265. This

257 Bentley 1954, 189.

258 Zeami 1984, 27 (Fãshikaden).

259 Zeami 1984, 4 (Fãshikaden).

260 Zeami 1984, 89 (KakyÇ).

261 Zeami 1984, 76 (KakyÇ).

262 Zeami 1984, 94 (KakyÇ).

263 Felner 1985, 59.

264 Zeami 1984, 96-97 (KakyÇ).

265 Sekine 1985, 88. This is Sekine=s translation from Fãshikaden. Rimer and Masakazu translate this sentence in a slightly more elliptical way: AThe most important aspect of movement concerns the use of actor=s entire body. The second most important aspect concerns the use of his hands, and the third, the use of his feet@ (Zeami 1984, 27).

97

bears similarity to the priorities of modern mime, provided that the priority of the

text, which is also behind this statement, is laid aside.

The three basic role types of nÇ are old person, woman and warrior. All the other

roles grow out of these, and studying them is essential for the young actor.266 It

is easy to draw parallels to Decroux=s four character types that he used in his

teaching and training.

More than from individual techniques, though, the similarity can been sought

from the religious devotion to the art. AOne who wishes to follow the nÇ must

not engage in any other art@, writes Zeami.267 If an actor really wishes to master

the nÇ, he must set aside all other pursuits and truly give his whole soul to the

art; then as his learning increases and his experience grows, he will gradually

himself reach a level of awareness and to come to understand nÇ.268 Respect for

the teacher269 and devotion to one=s master is also seen as a similarity between

Decrouvian mime and not only nÇ but the Eastern theatre - and martial arts270 -

training in general. There are numerous references to Decroux and his pupils as a

religious holy order271 in which Decroux is the hidden master who reveals

himself only to his disciples272. In traditional Japanese theatre, the tradition is

guarded by the schools or families, iemoto.

266 Zeami 1984, 64 (ShikadÇ).

267 Zeami 1984, 3 (Fãshikaden). Zeami makes a slight concession in favour of poetry, though. Barba writes similarly about Decroux=s views (Barba 1997, 9).

268 Zeami 1984, 105 (KakyÇ).

269 Zeami 1984, 106 (KakyÇ).

270 Deshimaru 1982, 16.

271 Bentley 1953, 195; Wylie 1993, 111; Barba 1997, 11.

272 Barba 1997, 11.

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In the iemoto system, a personal teacher-disciple relationship is essential, and

disciples do not communicate the artistic secrets to the outside world. The teaching

method is not theoretical or abstract; instead it proceeds as the secret transmission

from person to person of a private spiritual heritage through practical,

experimental, and concrete training.273

The aspiration for building a coherent system - and non-tolerance for other

systems - for actor=s art can also been seen as a similarity between Decroux and

Zeami274, and Oriental theatre forms in general:

It is symptomatic that Étienne Decroux, perhaps the only European master to have

elaborated a system of rules comparable to that of an Oriental tradition, seeks to

transmit to his students the same rigorous closedness to theatre forms different

from his own. In the case of Decroux, as that of the Oriental masters, it is not a

question of narrow-mindedness nor of intolerance. It has to do with the awareness

that the bases of an actor=s work, his points of departure, must be defended like his

most precious possessions, even at he risk of isolation, otherwise they will be

irremediably polluted and destroyed by synchretism.275

There are several areas in Zeami=s texts which are open to different readings: one

can see either similarities or differences to modern mime in them. One of these

areas is the relationship between text and gestures. With gestures

one must project feelings that are in accord with words spoken. For example, when

the idea of observing is suggested in the text, the actor performs a gesture of

looking; if such matters as pointing and pulling are mentioned, then the appropriate

gesture is made; when a sound is to be heard, the actor assumes an attitude of

listening.276

273 Ortolani 1995, 105.

274 Leabhart 1997, 5.

275 Barba 1982, 6.

276 Zeami 1984, 27 (Fãshikaden).

99

Certainly, this can be read so that Zeami considers gestures important, but it can

also be read as yet another example of the text=s priority to the gesture.

Especially in the case of symbolic gestures, the verbal expression should preceed

the gesture in order to create the most powerful effect. For example, the actor

should say the word >crying= before the movement of weeping.277

The mask is another thought-provoking area. Actually, Zeami himself did not lay

much importance on the masks in the training of the actor, and many of the

masks used in nÇ were developed and adopted to the form later.278 No doubt, for

an untrained eye, there is an element of neutrality in the nÇ masks (the mask of

the young woman), which would tempt one to draw parallels with the neutral

mask of the Decrouvian mime, but there are also masks with clear character traits

in nÇ (the masks of the old man and the devil). Ordinary persons are typically

performed without a mask and that is why Zeami emphasizes the necessity to

study the role and use the actor=s own natural expressions and not to try to

imitate the facial expressions of the character. The characterisation should rather

be constructed from the movements and general feeling of the person being

portrayed.279

It is clear that we can find both differences and similarities in Zeami=s and

Decroux=s theories. Many similarities also depend on the reading of the texts. I

would not go as far as Wylie in stating that there are an endless amount of

similarities - many of the features listed by her can be read both ways, and many

of them belong to areas that Decroux developed much later than in the 1930s.

However, there are parallels to Zeami=s theories which make it justifiable to

ponder where these would originate from, whether they were filtered to his work

277 Sekine 1985, 96 (Sekine=s translation from KakyÇ).

278 Ortolani 1995, 149.

279 Zeami 1984, 12 (Fãshikaden).

100

or were they perhaps, after all, expressions of the pre-expressive layer in the

theatre.

3.3. The Martial Art of Modern Mime

There are no texts from Barrault from the 1930s. However, in Réflexions sur le

théâtre, which was published in 1949, Barrault gives a good account on what he

Amight have said on mime during that time@280.

Mime is the very art of Silence. It is the other of the two extremes of pure theatre

- the opposite being pure diction. One should practice mime nude and the face

covered with an impersonal mask. There should be no music or sound effects.

The upper body, torso, is the source of expression. In Decroux=s words: the

trunk of the body represents the truth - the arms are only extensions and

explanations281. All gestures originate from the spinal column - that is why the

mime has to gain the control of the spinal column, joint by joint. Because from

these joints originate the movement of the limbs.

All human gestures can be resumed to two essential movements: pulling and

pushing. The focus is in the navel. Barrault lists nine points that are essential for

the training of a mime:

1. The exercise for total relaxation which is equivalent to purification.

2. Consciousness of the muscles in isolation from each other. To learn to use a muscle without using

any of the others.

280

Barrault 1949, 35-36. Some caution, naturally, is needed since the text is written almost twenty years after the collaboration. It will be seen later that the text also shows clear influence from Antonin Artaud - but since these influences derive from the first half of the 1930s as well, the presentation of the article is relevant in this context.

281 Decroux 1960. Notes of Eichenberg.

101

3. Becoming aware of groups of muscles.

4. Acquiring the muscle tone.

5. Developing the stomach (or abdominal) muscles.

6. Scales around the spinal column.

7. Study of the spinal column as a whip.

8. Sincerity of emotion.

9. Developing both analytical and respirational concentration.

There are no direct references to any form of Eastern theatre or training in these

texts by Barrault. However, several elements bring into mind, if not Japanese

actor training, at least Japanese martial arts training282, especially the importance

given to the spinal column, concentration, relaxation, and breathing.

In practicing both Zen and the martial arts, it is essential to concentrate on breathing

out. This draws energy down toward the lower part of the body and spinal column,

removing tension elsewhere and giving fresh strength.283

writes a Japanese martial arts teacher Deshimaru Taisen about the importance of

breathing and the spinal column as the source of strength.284 The lower part of

the trunk, hara, is important for the total control of breathing which Deshimaru,

actually, considers the most important element in the martial arts285. Breathing

out is the moment of strength. Breathing in, for its part, is the moment of

weakness, a stage when energy is at its lowest. Quite parallely, Eugenio Barba

writes about Decroux=s use of breathing:

282 The martial arts are not necessarily that far-fetched as a point of comparison.

Various kinds of sports were a strong inspiration to Decroux. An example of this enthusiasm is his writing about the boxer Georges Carpentier (Decroux 1977, 32).

283 Deshimaru 1982, 45.

284 Also in shamanism, the spinal column is considered the source of the latent powers (Wylie 1994, 104).

285 Deshimaru 1982, 83.

102

Contrary to generally accepted rules, the breathing out was the active phase where

he (Decroux) forced and developed the action. The breathing was fast and he called

it spasme.286

Both Barrault and Deshimaru consider the technical training as a necessary phase

but not the ultimate goal of the practice of the art. Barrault uses the expression

"one should practice mime" which, again, brings into mind the spiritual way of

practicing or following the way, dÇ. This practice is because of practice itself, not

because of practicing for something287.

Barrault is aware of the importance of the hara area. He requests the developing

of the stomach muscles and states that the focus of the movements is in the navel.

He is also using the term 'respirational concentration' which refers to breathing.

A very interesting aspect in Deshimaru's text is seeing breathing as "a link

between mind and body, spirit and posture". Eventually

the correct posture, attitude of mind, and breathing fall into balance easily. In the

beginning, the posture must be worked on consciously, patiently.288

Furthermore,

the posture creates perfect muscle tone with neither too much tension nor slackness,

balances the nervous system, and creates harmony between ourselves and the

universe.289

286 Barba 1997, 10.

287 Deshimaru 1982, 2.

288 Deshimaru 1982, 49.

289 Deshimaru 1982, 59.

103

On an advanced level, the balance can eventually be recreated in the four basic

postures of ordinary life - standing, walking, sitting, and laying down. Deshimaru

also makes an ironic comment on the Westeners having invented a fifth, Ahalf-

seated@ posture by using the chair. 290 This echoes interestingly Decroux=s

preference for standing rather than for Ahalf-sitting@:

Decroux saw the world as divided between those who stood and those who sat. The

standing ones were manual laborers, sculptors, dancers, and certain actors. The

sitting ones were university professors, critics, office workers, and certain

actors.291

In his article, Barrault does not refer to the concept of posture but, as seen

before, it is one of the key concepts of modern mime.

The two essential movements, pulling and pushing, form a pair, a unity composed

of two opposites that are necessary to each other292. Other interesting

expressions used by Barrault are 'consciousness', 'becoming aware', 'sincerity',

and, of course 'silence', a concept revered also by Deshimaru293.

The text that we have compared to the text of Deshimaru was written by Barrault

long after the collaboration between him and Decroux had ended, and it would

not be legitimate to assume that Decroux held exactly the same views as

Barrault, even in the 1930s. As a matter of fact, Kathryn Wylie does not see

much similarity between the corporeal mime of Decroux and Eastern theatre

training in general - regardless of the fact that she sees endless similarities

between the corporeal mime and nÇ. The trunk, certainly, was for Decroux the

290 Deshimaru 1982, 61.

291 Leabhart 1997, 4.

292 Masculine and feminine are usually the concepts referred in this context. Also

Deshimaru refers to those (Deshimaru 1982, 47).

293 Deshimaru 1982, 64.

104

most expressive area but its segments, the bust, the waist, and the pelvis, had a

different priority order: the bust was the most important of these three:

Unlike Eastern theatre where the movement radiates from the diaphragm and is

supported by the breath, corporeal mime movement tends to originate in the chest.

Breathing, which is an essential element of movement, is rarely, if ever, mentioned

by Decroux; and the abdomen, which is the true center of the body, is given little

emphasis and is nearly always flat and contained.294

Yet, there are Eastern parallels in Decroux=s statements on the role of breathing

out and on the importance of the standing position. A closer look shows that

Wylie=s evaluation is actually based on the character type of the Man of the

Drawing Room, i.e. the Western aristocrat, which is only one of the four

character types that Decroux used. When she deals with the other character

types, the Man of Sport, the Man of Dreams or the Marionette, the impression is

different, and much closer to the Eastern training principles. For example:

The study of the Man of Sports entails the exploration of the techniques of the

counterweights - - (which are) spasmodic movements of of pushing and pulling - -.

They involve an impulse from the stomach which passes from the center of the

body down through the legs and feet as the body both releases to and pulls away

from gravity.295

The similarities between techniques used in the two remaining Decrouvian

character types and Eastern training methods will be returned in the chapter on

Japanese theatre forms and the role of mime in these.296 At this point, it is time to

look at potential influences from Charles Dullin and his l=Atelier theatre, as well

as the actual performances and techniques that Decroux and Barrault developed

together in 1931-33.

294 Wylie 1994, 184.

295 Wylie 1994, 184-185.

296 Please see chapter V.

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4. The Influences from l=Atelier and the Collaboration in 1931-33

Charles Dullin, whose enthusiasm about Japanese theatre and the Nihon-Geki-

KyÇkai visit was touched upon earlier, provided a shelter for Decroux's and

Barrault's experiments in the early 1930s. Both were members of Dullin=s

company at the Théâtre de l=Atelier, and it was at this theatre that their first

public demonstrations of modern mime took place. As far as Barrault is

concerned, two of his 1930s productions, Autour d=une mère (1935) and La

Faim (1939), were performed at l'Atelier. However, there seems to be

ambivalence about Charles Dullin's influence especially on Decroux and the

development of modern mime. For example, Marco de Marinis does not mention

Dullin in this context, and Jean Dorcy denies his contribution vehemently297.

Thomas Leabhart, for his part, finds several similarities between Dullin=s body

language and modern mime.298 As far as acting style is concerned, Decroux

himself was more consciously inspired by Louis Jouvet's controlled, marionette-

like style of acting than by Dullin's more emotional, melodrama-influenced

expression which he, nevertheless, admired299.

Decroux was a member of l=Atelier company from 1926 to 1934. He is

occasionally mentioned in the reviews of l'Atelier performances, mostly

favourably300. For example, his characterisation of Captain Smith inspired a

reviewer to an eulogy:

297 Dorcy 1961, 38.

298 Leabhart 1989, 38.

299 Decroux 1973, 31-32. Interview by Thomas Leabhart. Before joining Dullin=s company Decroux was briefly a member of Jouvet=s company, and before that, he acted in productions of Georges Baty - whom Leabhart erroneously calls an actor and a student of Copeau.

300 Some reviews can be found from Collection Rondel (4 SW 6651) at the Bibliothéque de

106

M. Étienne Decroux a pu indiquer là de quelle puissance était son tempérament

d'acteur: force, vie, autorité, ironie, feu, sensibilité, orageuse, art du mime et la

caricature, intelligence aux profondes racines; tout cela qui est en lui, est révêlé par ce

saisissant dossin animé. Les directeurs de théâtre et producteurs de cinéma

découvriront bientôt en lui - - un des plus puissants acteurs de ce temps.301

Also Barrault gives credit to Decroux's acting in the company, and describes it as

stylised and compares it with dancing302.

Whatever Dullin=s influence was, at least he looked on approvingly on Decroux=s

and Barrault=s experimentation303. What is more, Leabhart thinks that l'Atelier

was one of the few theatres in which this kind of experimentation would have

been tolerated at all304. And, according to Barrault, after considerable sceptical

observation, Dullin was eventually impressed to the point that he admitted them

to have reached the technical perfection of Japanese actors305. Most likely,

Dullin=s point of reference here was the Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai group which inspired

him in 1930.

L'Atelier also had a school which, among other subjects, taught improvisation

and gymnastics. Even if Dullin was inspired by Japanese theatre, there is no

indication of anything of the scale of the Kantan project having been developed

there, nor is there any indication that the students of the school would have

learned non-European theatre techniques in the course of their studies. The

l'Arsénal. Captain Smith was a play written by Jean Blanchon.

301 Darbois, A. Nouvel-Age 30.3.1938. His skills in this role are praised also by Fortunat Strowski, Paris-Midi 18.3.1938; Madeleine Paz, Le Populaire 23.3.1938; and Léo Sauvage, Le Peuple 4.4.1938.

302 Barrault 1972, 71.

303 Decroux 1973. Interview by Thomas Leabhart, 31.

304 Leabhart 1989, 42.

305 Barrault 1972, 72.

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training was obviously quite practical and did not involve as much research as the

training at the Vieux-Colombier school.

He devoted himself to teaching his students basic principles in diction, breathing

exercises to free the actor, as well as gymnastic, rhythmic, and pantomimic studies.

Above all he gave primary importance to studies on improvisation in the style of

the commedia dell=arte.306

Decroux taught at the school for a while,307 and Barrault started there as a

student before joining l=Atelier company proper. Later, Barrault recruited several

actors for his productions from l=Atelier. Interestingly, it seems that Decroux did

not hold the physical expression skills of Dullin's actors in particular esteem,308

and recruited his collaborators from elsewhere. Decroux realised his first

production with his wife. This was La Vie primitive, performed at the Théâtre

Lancry in July 1931. Later the same year, Decroux performed La Vie primitive

with Barrault at l=Atelier.

Jean Dorcy ponders how developed Decroux's mime was in 1931 when Barrault

joined him. Dorcy had seen Decroux's first production of La Vie primitive and

describes it as very rhythmical but still embryonic gymnastics. As far as Barrault's

contribution is concerned, he writes:

In 1931, Barrault also played La Vie Primitive. I did not see him in this, but he was no

doubt faithful to the conception of Étienne Decroux. The opposite is unthinkable to

anyone who knows the intolerance and the despotism of the master in this area -

306 Cole - Chinoy 1970, 226.

307 According to Lust (1974, 22) Decroux taught at l=Atelier as a professor of mime in

1944-46 but she also indicates that Decroux taught mime to his fellow actors at l=Atelier - which would have been in 1934 the latest. Leabhart also writes that Decroux was a mime teacher at l=Atelier at the same time as he was acting with the company (Leabhart 1989, 38).

308 Decroux 1973, 31. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

108

Decroux is less pliable than a steel bar. It should also be remembered that in 1931

Jean-Louis Barrault was only a student actor, with every restriction of corporal order

that the profession entailed.309

The division of labour between Decroux and Barrault was, according to Barrault,

such that at first Decroux passed him the things that he had already learned by

himself, and that after this, they started working on new concepts and ideas.

Basically, they proceeded by complementing each other:

Nous nous complétions assez. Decroux par son sens analytique sûr et une intelligence

créatrice exceptionelle savait fixer les variations improvisées que j'exécutais plus

spontanément.310

So, Decroux analysed and Barrault improvised. Also Leabhart sees Barrault as

more Dionysian and intuitive than Decroux, who was often Apollonian and

cerebral in his modernism311. Jean Dorcy is convinced that it was just this

collaboration that created Athe Mime@312.

As far as Decroux's role as the instigator of modern mime is concerned, Barrault

has willingly given credit to Decroux in his interviews and in his writings.

However, in the chapter "Éducation Première" of his memoirs, Barrault does not

make any difference between his own and Decroux's ideas. Most likely the

difference could not be made, and it is justified to analyse their theories more or

less intertwined, trying to focus in their thoughts and experiments in the early

1930s. Felner does much the same. She writes about "their work"313 without

specifying which one of them was responsible for specific ideas and without

309 Dorcy 1961, 53.

310 Barrault 1972, 34.

311 Leabhart 1989, 66.

312 Dorcy 1961, 54.

313 Felner 1985, 56.

109

defining when exactly the discoveries took place. Leabhart merely maintains the

idea of Decroux as the rational and analytical half, and gives Barrault the mystical

and intuitive role314.

Jean Dorcy is convinced that the theory of modern mime did not yet exist in 1931

when Barrault started working with Decroux315. It was developed during the

1930s, and it was developed through practice, like many other modernist

inventions. It has actually been said that modernism, first of all, was practice316.

Decroux and Barrault did not create long performances, their work was mostly

research and experimentation317. The short pieces that were created, were also

constantly modified. For example, Decroux kept on developing his first piece La

Vie primitive until 1940318. Hébertism with its idealisation of unrestricted

movement was one of the influences behind La Vie primitive. Most interestingly,

Mira Felner finds correspondences between the contents of Hébert=s book and

the structures of both La Vie primitive and its sequel, La Vie médiévale, which

Decroux and Barrault also worked on together.319 The themes of primitive life

and medieval life can also be tied to a wider modernist interest in primitive,

exotic and past cultures320. In La Vie primitive, Decroux presented a happy

savage indulging such activities as climbing a tree, picking a coconut, and rowing

on a river, altogether enjoying his muscles and not being restricted by clothes and

social conventions. In La Vie médiévale, the occupational gestures of medieval

314 Leabhart 1989, 41.

315 Dorcy 1961, 53.

316 Chefdor 1986, 105.

317 Barrault 1979. Interview by William Weiss.

318 Lust 1974, 16.

319 Felner 1985, 182.

320 Crunden 1993, xxii.

110

artisans were the materials which were worked on. In addition to modernism,

comparisons to the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau are not inaccurate321.

Combat scenes were natural material for displaying physical performance skills.

They provide some allusions to traditional Japanese theatre, especially to kabuki,

where combat scenes contain plenty of mimed elements. We have also seen, that

the >kabuki= of Tsutsui TokujirÇ used flashy fighting scenes, which appealed to

the audience. La Vie primitive included a combat scene322, and during their

collaboration in 1931-33, Decroux and Barrault created also a full combat piece,

Le Combat antique. It seems that it was just this piece that inspired Dullin to

praise the technical skills of Decroux and Barrault as comparable to the skills of

Japanese actors.323 Le Combat antique was originally performed as an

independent number after two years of collaboration and, later, as a part

Shakespeare=s Anthony and Cleopatra at the Comédie Française in 1945. Later

in the 1930s, Decroux worked on Le Combat antique with his son and students,

completing it to perfection. The piece stayed in Decroux's repertory for several

decades. For example, Eric Bentley saw it in the 1950s, and considered it the

most impressive of Decroux's compositions, in which he presented all possible

shades of corporeal expression324.

When it comes to individual techniques, these emerged in shorter time. For

example, Barrault writes that developing the stock-of-the-trade technique of 20th

century mimes, the walk on the spot, took three weeks325. Again, it would be too

321 Lust, 1974, 16. According to Maximilien Decroux, his father and Barrault created yet another piece, named La Vie industrielle, together (Decroux M. 1997, 45. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.).

322 Lust 1974, 16-17.

323 Leabhart 1989, 41.

324 Bentley 1953, 176.

325 Barrault 1949, 33. This would later develop into the piece Marches de personnages sur place.

111

far-fetched to see direct Oriental influences in this technique. However, it is

worth noting that in Japanese theatre, the walk is one of the most important

techniques that the actor learns.326 This can be seen in nÇ and its gliding walk or

later, for example, in the emphasis that Suzuki Tadashi lays on the walk and the

grammar of feet in the actor's expression.327 Perhaps even more clearly the

importance of the walk shows in butÇ, in which the actor-dancer moves on the

stage unnoticeably with small and controlled steps.

When the collaboration with Barrault ended in 1933, Decroux was again left

alone to experiment with his ideas. Felner writes that many techniques that

Decroux developed, were expansion from the research conducted with Barrault,

even if his interest shifted from creating the illusion to more abstract forms328.

Using the terminology of modern mime, it can be said that Decroux=s interest

shifted from objective to subjctive mime.

As a summary of the influences from the Vieux-Colombier and l=Atelier, the

parallels with traditional Japanese theatre and martial arts, evoked by Decroux=s

and Barrault=s texts from the 1930s, as well as information on the practical work

on mime by them, it is interesting to try out whether Pavis= hourglass could

illuminate any influences of traditional Japanese theatre, in this case nÇ, to

modern mime. The production of Kantan is used as a central element in this

hourglass, because there is no evidence that Decroux and Barrault saw authentic

nÇ performances in the early 1930s.

326 Please see Chapter V. for more detailed description on the techniques of

traditional Japanese theatre forms.

327 Suzuki 1987, 6-7.

328 Felner 1985, 57.

112

SOURCE CULTURE: Japanese traditional theatre

cultural modelling: available literature;Craig=s

inspiration

artistic modelling: selected play, Kantan,

and the work on it

perspective of the adapters: vision about physical,

seríous theatre

work of adaptation: by Suzanne Bing

preparatory work by actors: physical training and

study at the school;

choice of theatrical form:

the modified nÇ

theatrical representation of culture: the performance

of Kantan

reception-adapters: selected

audience,

among it

Decroux

readability: open to creative

interpretations

artistic modelling: applied in the

development

sociological and anthropological

modelling: Dullin=s

encouragement

at l=Atelier

cultural modelling: search for new means of

expression

given and anticipated

consequences: silent, serious, corporeal theatre

TARGET CULTURE: modern mime

113

In the upper part of the hourglass, we can place all the literature that was used in

preparation of the Kantan project, as well as the influence of Gordon Craig that

was indicated in the sources. These were combined into artistic vision of the

group and the actual adaptation work by Suzanne Bing. Decroux=s presence in

the audience, Dullin=s encouragement with references to the skills of Japanese

actors and a certain freedom in the interpretation, acted as filters. Eventually, the

lower part of the hourglass was filled with grains that helped in the search for

new means of expression and emphasized silent, serious and corporeal theatre,

i.e. modern mime.

The model seems to illuminate the case, especially since there is a fair amount of

information on the background of the Kantan project but, of course, it cannot

give any definite proof of Decroux or Barrault having absorbed the influences.

In Carlson=s model329, Kantan as a performance seems to get close to the

category in which an entire performance from another culture is recreated with

no attempt to accommodate it to the familiar (degree 7), but the influence on

modern mime would remain in the category where the foreign and the familiar

create a new blend, becoming familiar (degree 4). The order of the categories

seems logical. Whether this was the case is another question.

5. Decroux après Barrault: the Laboratory of Corporeal Mime

It seems that the rest of the 1930s, after 1933, Decroux worked on those pieces

that emerged in 1940330 when he opened his own mime school. This is a

justifiable assumption since Decroux did have a tendency to chisel his numbers

329 Please see Chapter III.1.1.2.

330 According to Veinstein (1963, 9) and Perret (In: Lecoq 1987, 65) the school was opened in 1940. According to Leabhart (1989, 43), in 1941.

114

over a long period of time331. In the 1930s, these works were not tested in public

performances, but in hundreds of private ones, mostly in his living-room332. The

1937 piece, Le Bec dans l=eau, performed in connection with World Exhibition,

is a curiosity, but it should be remembered that, even if Decroux's public mime

performances were limited, he did have an extensive career as a stage, radio, and

film actor throughout the 1930s333. Le Bec dans l=eau clearly belongs to this

category of Decroux=s activities.

The following pieces were performed in 1940334: Le Menuisier (The Carpenter),

La Lessive (The Washer), La Machine (The Machine), La Vie primitive

(Primitive Life), Le Professeur de boxe (The Boxing Teacher), L=Haltérophile

(The Weightlifter), and Marches de personnages sur place (People walking on a

spot). The focus was in short compositions, although some of these were later

extended to longer performances. For example, La Machine was originally a

solo work, which was later adapted for three actors335. In 1941, Decroux and his

students performed his first mimodrama, Camping, at la Comédie des Champs

Elysées, and in 1942, he and his students gave more than sixty performances

consisting of both solo and longer pieces.336 As far as Japanese influences or

allusions are concerned, these compositions did not venture any further than to

those allusions and parallels that were discovered earlier in the pieces developed

331 Decroux, M. 1997. Interview by Thomas Leabhart, 49.

332 Leabhart 1989, 43.

333 For more details, see Lust 1974, 22. It must be said, however, that neither Decroux nor Barrault seem to feature in the most artistically merited French films of the 1930s introduced by John Martin in Golden Age of French Cinema 1929-39 (1983).

334 Lust 1974, 23. Veinstein also lists most, if not all, of these (Veinstein 1963, 9). This list included in a typewritten >Note autobiographique= which Decroux adressed to André Veinstein (RO 11.579).

335 Lust 1974, 16.

336 Lust 1974, 23. Among those sixty were La Chirurgie esthétique, La Dernière conquête, Le Passage des hommes sur la terre, and Le Feu. Also these were private performances (Leabhart 1989, 43).

115

together with Barrault, La Vie primitive, La Vie médiévale, Le Combat antique

or Marches sur place. Occupational gestures and sport themes are prominent in

the repertoire. The feature closest to the Oriental was the concentrated and

nearly religious work in perfecting these pieces.

6. The Oriental in Contemporary Mime?

Charles Aubert's L'Art mimique. Suivi d'un traité de la pantomime (1901) shows

that Decroux and Barrault were not the first ones to rebel against 19th century

pantomime tradition nor the only ones to build new systems aspiring for total

corporeal training of the actor. Elisabeth Harwood's How we train the body. The

Mechanics of Pantomime Technique (1933) is another, more contemporary,

example of the same trend. However, it is hard to find from these works as close

parallels to Oriental theatre than what were discovered from the theories of

Decroux and Barrault.

When it comes to the actual practice of mime, it must be remembered that

Decroux and Barrault were not the only performers of modern mime in the

1930s. Were there features in the other mimes= work that could be considered

close to or inspired by traditional Japanese theatre during that time?

In his book, The Mime, Jean Dorcy introduces some French mimes and mime

companies that were active during the same time as Decroux and Barrault337.

Dorcy=s own group Proscennium was one of them. Proscennium was a political

theatre group and used extensively the talking chorus technique but, at the same

time, the group also aimed to Are-theatricalize@ the theatre. The mask exercises -

which had their roots at the École du Vieux-Colombier - were used. Eventually,

337 Dorcy wrote his book in the late 1950s from his own first-hand experiences.

116

writes Dorcy, they discovered a growing conflict between text and gesture. They

ended up performing poems, which were recited by one group of actors and

mimed, either alternately or at the same time, by the others.338 The use of chorus

and the combination of recital and non-verbal expression reminds of the

conventions of traditional Japanese theatre forms, especially nÇ and bunraku, but

also brings into mind the ancient Roman pantomime.

The other performers that Dorcy mentions were les Comédiens-Routiers of Léon

Chancerel, specializing on masked improvisations; Gilles and Julien, two actors

who combined music and mime; and the Compagnie des Quinze.339 Jean Dasté

was involved in both les Comédiens-Routiers and the Compagnie des Quinze -

and he would also perform in Barrault=s first production in 1935. Dorcy devotes

a whole chapter for him - and a part of this chapter deals with the 1947

production of the nÇ play, Sumida, which Dasté realised with Suzanne Bing and

Marie-Hélène Dasté.340

Dorcy=s report shows that there was a varied amount of modern mime activity in

France in the 1930s, and that some interest in and allusions to Japanese theatre

tradition can be observed in it. However, with the exception of the Compagnie

des Quinze and Jean Dasté, none of them can be said to show any more Oriental

traits than Decroux=s and Barrault=s work.

Since all groups presented by Dorcy actually derive from the tradition of the

Vieux-Colombier, it is also interesting to have a look at some other

contemporary representatives of mime, and examine if there was anything close

to Eastern approaches in their work. Of the contemporary non-French mimes,

338 Dorcy 1961, 28-30.

339 Dorcy 1961, 15-17, 23.

340 Dorcy 1961, 19-22. Interesting itself is that this play, as well as the other nÇ adaptations of Dastés A- - s=inspirant, consciemment ou non, davantage du kabuki que du nô A (Sieffert 1960, 10).

117

British mimes and the American Angna Enters are interesting examples. Also

modern dance, especially styles with clear theatrical aspirations, deserve to be

looked at. For reasons elaborated below, I have chosen Kurt Jooss's The Green

Table as an example and a point of reference in this area.

6.1. British Mime in the 1930s

Most activists of the British mime movement in the 1930s were women who, in

addition to teaching and performing, wrote mime manuals341. They did not

always advocate mime as a remedy for the actor's art, but had a strong desire to

train and educate young students. In this pursuit, they were on a parallel course

with Jacques Copeau who, cherishing the idea of starting theatrical training from

an early age, established a section for children at the Vieux-Colombier school342.

Of course, in their desire to educate and train children from an early age, they

also resemble the ideals outlined by Zeami in nÇ training.

In a way, the British mime enthusiasts achieved more than their French

counterparts. They organised an annual Mime Festival in London from 1935 to

1939, and published a special magazine, The Mime Review 343. The Mime

Festivals were a one day event, and did not receive any extensive publicity,

leaving The Mime Review as the main source of information. Most of the festival

performers were amateurs, but at least in 1936 and 1937 there were special

categories for professionals. As an allusion to Japanese theatre, one could

341 Chisman-Wiles 1934; Ginner 1933; Mawer 1933; Pepler 1932; Pickersgill 1935; Newman 1934.

342 Copeau himself was influenced by the Montessori method.

343 Two to four issues were published annually in 1935-38. In 1939, The Mime Review was merged to School Drama magazine.

118

mention that competitions for both professional and amateur actors are actually

an integral part of the nÇ training and performance culture even today.

In 1935, the objective of the Mime Festival was first and foremost to encourage

practice of mime in schools and to consolidate the work of those already teaching

the subject in different parts of the country344. During the following years, the

goals became more specified, and were eventually formulated as follows:

1. To promote the study and practice of the Art of Mime.

2. To foster and guide the creative instinct.

3. To speak the knowledge that mime is the basis of all dramatic art.

4. To encourage the practice of mime amongst those suffering from physical

disabilities.

5. To encourage the study and practice of the Art of Mime in educational and social

institutions.345

In addition to its educational value, mime was thus seen as a basis of all dramatic

art. Many children=s mimes seen at the festivals were based on nursery rhymes

and fairy tales. Adults used such themes as audition, boxing match and

swimming.346 Demonstrations of occupational gestures were also popular, but

often there was a false tendency to Aregard perfectly reproduced occupational

gesture as the whole art of mime@347. Actually, the repertoire bears similarity to

Decroux=s early work in which occupational gestures and sports were used.

In addition to the annual festivals, mime shows were organised by the two mime

schools operating in London, The London School of Mime and Dramatic Acting,

which was a subdivision of The London School of Dramatic Art, and Ginner -

344

The Mime Review, July 1935, Vol. 1, No 1.

345 The Mime Review, April 1939.

346 The Mime Review, July 1935, Vol 1, No 1.

347 Chisman 1938.

119

Mawer School of Drama.348 The Ginner - Mawer School organised a show

named Mime Parade in London on June 13, 1937. The programme of the show

gives an indication on the themes that were of interest for British mime

professionals and enthusiasts in the 1930s:

1. The first act of L=Enfant prodigue (a famous 19th century Pierrot pantomime)

2. A contemporary satire named ARadio Breakfast@

3. People that walked in Darkness

4. The Idyll of Theocritus (a spectacle)

5. The Flood (based on a Chester Miracle Play)

6. Harlequin=s Child (based on commedia dell=arte)

World War II ended the festivals, and, unfortunately, there is no indication of

their continuation after the war. There is no evidence on anything related to

traditional Japanese theatre forms in the articles published in the Mime Review,

the festival programmes or in the special shows, whereas the commedia dell=arte

tradition is clearly present, as are the Biblical and Greco-Roman themes.

6.2. The Compositions of Angna Enters

In the United States, Angna Enters created her own line of performances, in

which costumes, music and light, not the muscular work of a nearly nude body,

conveyed the unspoken message. Most of her 250 pieces were composed

between the late 1920s and the first half of the 1930s. She called them

'compositions in dance form' in the beginning of her career and 'the theatre of

Angna Enters' later. In her book First Person Plural (1937), she still used the

term 'mime' slightly ambivalently, whereas in her 1965 book, On Mime, she

finally opted unconditionally for 'mime' and 'pantomime'. In the 1930s, the critics

348

Cooke 1935.

120

did use such terms as 'mime portraits'349 or 'dance in prose' performed by an

Über-marionette350 or 'theater making equal use of costuming, lighting,

movement and drama'351. Enters= performing career spanned for forty years, but

three quarters of her pieces were composed between 1924 and 1936352. She

made her debuts in London and Paris at the end of 1920s and remained a regular

visitor to European cities during the 1930s.

Enters' performance pieces were short, approximately four to eight minutes

each353. In most of them she portrayed a single character, usually a woman of a

certain period, in her own reverie or interacting with other, imaginary, characters.

She did not take several roles in the scetch. Evoking the period with a minutious

historical accuracy was one of her guiding principles, which does not mean that

she shunned away from satirical and political themes. In the late 1920s and the

early 1930s, the popular Orientalism, the Delsartians and the German modern

dance got their share of her irony,354 and in Mid-1930s she composed pieces

related to the rise of fascism in Germany and Spain355, commenting also the

developments in the Far East356.

A fascinating twist in Enters' performance career is that she actually started it

with the Japanese dancer Ito MichiÇ who, after his years in Europe, had landed

349 Bohm, N.Y. Herald Tribune 21.12.1937.

350 Love 1931.

351 Terry, N.Y. Herald Tribune 17.12.1939. In this article, Terry also compares Enters= compositions to the Japanese haiku poems.

352 Cocuzza 1980, 102.

353 Cocuzza 1980, 102.

354 The Yellow Peril (1928); Delsarte - With a Not Too Classic Nod to the Greeks (1929); Oh, The Pain of It! (1930).

355 Among them Spain Says "Salud!" (1936) and Modern Totalitarian Hero (1937).

356 Japan 'Defends' Itself (1937).

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to New York. Ito had originally come to Germany to study architecture and,

subsequently, gotten interested in Jacques-Dalcroze's teachings. He had studied

kabuki in Japan, and did see similarities between this form and Dalcroze=s

method.357 Eventually he ended up performing. W. B. Yeats' nÇ-inspired dance

play At the Hawk's Well was composed for Ito in 1916. In addition to playing the

role of the Hawk guarding the well, he had the opportunity to create his own,

realistic and modernist dances for the play. As scholars have pointed out, these

were clearly different from nÇ dances358. This is not particularly surprising since

Ito had not seen a nÇ play since his childhood and did not know neither the form

nor the texts. It seems that he used some of his kabuki training in creating the

role, combining it with >Egyptian= hand movements.359

Another amusing twist is that Enters wished to study with Ito, because she

mistakenly thought that he was a mime teacher360. Eventually, she ended up

performing briefly as 'a dancer of Japanese forms'361 but soon realised that it was

not in alignment with her aspirations and, even if she used some Japanese and

other Oriental themes in her compositions, she clearly was more at home with the

European sources.362

Unlike Decroux, Enters was not interested in creating a theory or a coherent

methodology for her work. She worked alone and saw no way of reducing her

357 Caldwell 1977, 38.

358 Taylor 1976, 113.

359 Caldwell 1977, 45.

360 Enters 1937, 22. Interestingly, also Martha Graham performed with Ito in the beginning of her career.

361 Enters 1937, 22. She also mentions two Japanese, Tomashi Komori and Yasuchi Wuriu, as the teachers of these forms without specifying their style more closely.

362 Terry, N.Y. Herald Tribune 18.12.1939

122

free method into a communicable format363. Like Barrault, she was more

interested in performing than nurturing students - for which she actually

consented as late as in the 1960s364.

6.3. The Green Table of Kurt Jooss

It can be argued that in its sheer physicality or corporeality and level of

abstraction, the work of Decroux and Barrault was 'more modern' than the work

of the British mimes or Enters, and thus deserves to be canonised. But it should

not be forgotten that, in the field of physical and abstract expression,

contemporary German and North American modern dance channelled plenty of

mime talent in its work.365 Angna Enters did not trust that her performances

could be subsumed into a coherent methodology and did not express a desire to

transfer her art to a disciple.366 German choreographer Kurt Jooss is a good

example of the opposite and, for several reasons, it is useful to have a look at

Jooss' choreography The Green Table (Der Grüne Tisch) from 1932. The same

year, this piece won the first price at the International Congress of the Dance in

Paris and was subsequently performed in Europe and in the United States

363 Enters 1965, 7.

364 On Mime was a result from a training course and does show that she did have method and vision in her art, and not much patience with average students.

365 Of the North American dancers, Charles Weidman, was often praised for his talent for mime. Curiously enough, it is the male dancers who are usually noted for their accomplishment in this area! The women performers that were noted in this respect were not as much the legendary pioneers of the modern dance but those who, from a dance background, created their careers in cabaret with their clownish characters. In the 1930's, Austrian Cilli Wang and originally German Lotte Goslar, who emigrated to United States, are the most prominent examples.

366 In spite of this, there have been some revivals of her pieces. In 1981 and in 1986, Laura Segal held an evening of some of Enters' episodes using the original costumes and her descriptions of the movements (Mandel 1986, 341).

123

throughout the 1930s367, making it one of the most prominent (Western)

performances of the decade and an interesting point of reference in the

development of mime during the period.

It is also fascinating that Jooss=s art impressed Étienne Decroux. In the foreword

of the English translation of Paroles sur le mime, he regrets that, in the original

French version of the book, he had not paid tribute to Jooss, who, although a

dancer like Noverre, was a Abrother@:

Joss, also an dancer, placed himself outside dance and old-style pantomime, and

created a ballet known as AThe Green Table@. This play without words moves from

satire to tragedy. Its success was great, and long-lived throughout the world; and it

belongs to the period immediately after the First World War.368

If Enters had taken up the political themes of the 1930s in her pieces, so did Kurt

Jooss in his modern version of medieval death dance, "stemming from the danses

macabres of the past age and providing vividly realistic commentary on the

destructive forces of war"369. The Green Table is named 'dance drama in 8

scenes' reflecting Jooss' mission which was clearly oriented towards dance

theatre.

We believe in the Dance as an independent art of the Theatre, an art which cannot be

expressed in words, but whose language is movement built up of forms and penetrated

by the emotions.

367 John Martin mentions in his 1941 N.Y. Times review that in its tenth year, The Green Table had been performed more than 1750 times (Martin, N.Y.T 23.9.1941).

368 Decroux 1985, 154.

369 Jooss 1937, Souvenir Book of the third American tour.

124

We desire to serve the Dance of the the Theatre, which we look upon as the most

intensely significant synthesis of living dramatic expression with the Dance properly

so called.370

And, indeed, this element did not go unobserved by the contemporary critics. It

was considered that the Jooss Ballet was more closely allied with drama than

many other forms of "theater dance" and that "the total effect of the average

Jooss production is that of drama unfolded through action rather than told in

words"371. Clearly, we are moving in the thin demarcation line between mime and

dance, which got even thinner when modern dance developed systematically

towards dance theatre and modern mime absorbed more abstract ways of

presentation372.

The theatrical style that is closest to The Green Table is expressionism with its

sentiments of anger, fears and ironies stemming from World War I373. The

dreamlike athmosphere, structure based on episodes, incidents and tableaux,

stylised and puppet-like characterisation and movements which were typical for

expressionistic theatre374 are easily recognisable in it. The expressionistic acting

in its stylisation approached dance in many cases, and, in the alternation of

tension and relaxation in different parts of the body, could also resemble the

work of the mimes375. Even if expressionism in theatre was predominantly a

370 Jooss 1937, Souvenir Book of the third American tour.

371 Terry, N.Y. Herald Tribune 28.9.1941.

372 Jooss also used themes that were common with the 19th century pantomime. For example, The Prodigal Son or L'Enfant prodique, written by Michel Carre fils, was a popular mimodrama. The main character of Pierrot was originally created by Jane May in 1891. In the beginning of the 20th century many female mimes, such as Felicia Mallet, mentor of Georges Wague, and the British mime Irene Mawer excelled in it. The play was also filmed in 1906 and 1916, and one of the stage revivals took place in Paris in 1928.

373 Siegel 1989, 15.

374 Styan 1981, 4-5.

375 Aslan 1974, 128.

125

1920s phenomenon, Jooss' choreography and anti-war message retained their

relevance in the 1930s, the more so when the decade drifted towards a new "vain

war that leaves things unsettled"376. There were also other influences than

expressionism. Oskar Schlemmer sees in The Green Table elements in common

with the Bauhausian "gesture dance" and thinks that the basic steps by the

dancers might be identified with the Bauhausian "spatial dance"377.

The performing history of The Green Table extends to the present378. Certainly,

and unfortunately, the themes of war, death, profiteering, and empty words of

politicians have not lost any of their relevance in our times. Relevance of the style

of The Green Table is a different matter. As Marcia B. Siegel points out, in the

late 20th century no one is dancing quite like it379. The reason why The Green

Table has been revived several times lies in Jooss' detailed original choreography

and the copious work of notation that it was subjected to during the following

decades - but this is also the reason why it does not give the dancers much

opportunity for their own contemporary expressive choices. Jooss was a pupil of

Rudolf von Laban whose first book on labanotation was published in 1926, and

whose work, in its goal for universality and emphasis on the close relationship

between movement and emotion, are in alignment, not only with Jooss but also

with the work of many other representatives of the expressionist dance380. The

first labanotation of The Green Table was done in 1938.

376 Martin 1941, N.Y.Times 23.9.41.

377 Schlemmer, Letter to Otto Mayer, 26.8.1932. In Schlemmer 1972, 298. In this same letter, Schlemmer refers to, unidentified, sources which suggested that the work of Jooss and his company would not have been possible without their visit to Bauhaus. Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet was revived and performed at the same competition in which The Green Table won the first price and Schlemmer himself was surprised and mystified about the quality and strength of Jooss's work. Triadic Ballet was actually revived for several occasions outside Germany in the 1930's even if Schlemmer himself expresses certain reluctance to the revivals (Letters to Otto Mayer 31.1.1930, to Gunda Stötzl 2.6.1932, Julius Schottländer 3.11.1935, and Ida Bienert 25.10.1937. In Schlemmer 1972, 255, 292, 342, 365, respectively.)

378 I had an opportunity to see the reconstruction by the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago in Chicago on March 13, 1998. The original Joffrey Ballet reconstruction dates from 1967.

379 Siegel 1989, 15.

380 Siegel 1989, 15.

126

Notation in modern mime is an intriguing question. The key concepts of

labanotation - space, time, weight and body - would seem to fit perfectly for

modern mime and help in its preservation and interpretation. However, even

Decroux, who worked on his short pieces minutely for decades, did not leave

behind notated versions of hiswork or seemed interested in notation.381 Was this

because it might have meant a too close liaison with music, an alien art. The idea

behind notation is, indeed, to approximate the exactitude of musical

composition382. Or could we see yet another parallel to the Oriental masters in

this. Perhaps Decroux just preferred to transmit his Asecret tradition of corporeal

mime@ to his devoted students in person. In theatre, the idea of notation arose

much later than in dance, even if the most eloquent of the 1930s theatrical

visionaries, Antonin Artaud, queried for a notation system, which would

transcribe everything which goes beyond the spoken word, thus postulating a

way of notating body, facial expression, and stage383.

Like in the cases of British mimes or Angna Enters, it is difficult to trace obvious

Oriental features in Jooss' work, even if the character of Death in The Green

Table, in its harness-like costume and forceful, earthbound and military-drill-like

movements can, momentarily, evoke a picture of a Japanese samurai. The

comparisons would be too far-fetched, even if expressionism, which influenced

Jooss, might, in some scholars= minds, evoke similarity with the suggestive and

chargedly interrupted gestures of the nÇ theatre384.

381 Jean-Louis Barrault seems even less inclined to notation which would preserve his mises en scènes - at least according to Pavis's comment on Barrault's Mise en scène de Phèdre which he finds more full of notes with metaphysical, musical and psychological remarks than the concrete production (Pavis 1982, 117).

382 And, vice versa, the modern composition can be said to give a graphic dimension to acoustic matter (Pavis 1982, 126).

383 Pavis 1982, 125.

384 Aslan 1974, 128.

127

7. Infiltration, Misunderstanding or Return to the Pre-Expressive?

After a careful examination of the practice, theories and contemporary influences,

it does not seem that there was any strong, conscious influence of traditional

Japanese theatre on the work of Étienne Decroux in the 1930s. Nor can such

elements be found from the work of other contemporary mimes. Decroux=s mime

of the period builds mostly on sports, occupational gesture and themes of

machinery. Decroux=s texts from the same period have hardly any references to

Japanese theatre, which in its >totality= seems also quite opposite to his early

views against mixing the elements in a theatre performance. Yet, theoretically,

the 1920s and the 1930s performances by the Japanese artists, Hanako, Udagawa

and Kawamura (Vengeange), and the Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai group could have

inspired him, as could Gémier=s Le Masque and the Vieux-Colombier=s Kantan.

The same performances could also have influenced Jean-Louis Barrault who,

however, does not refer to these in his writings either. It is difficult to find

confirmation for any form of direct infiltration. Certainly, we can try to use the

hourglass, for example to look at the Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai group=s influence on

modern mime but the treatment has to remain cautiously speculative:

128

SOURCE CULTURE: the Japanese traditional theatre

cultural modelling: plays based on kabuki repertory

suitable for Western audience,

continuation of the visit tradition

artistic modelling: the selected plays, work on

those with >traditional= techniques

perspective of the adapters: traditional theatre modified

and made readable for

Western audiences,

commercial success

work of adaptation: by Tsutsui & Company

preparatory work by actors: combination of training

techniques

choice of theatrical form: modified kabuki

theatrical representation of culture: the performances

in Paris

reception-adapters: publicity,

wide audience,

among it Dullin,

his comments,

their possible effect

on Decroux and Barrault

readability: high, yet open to interpretations

artistic modelling: physical expression, fighting

scenes of modern mime

sociological and

anthropological modelling: the work with Barrault at l=Atelier

cultural modelling: the theory of corporeal mime

given and anticipated

consequences: silent, serious, corporeal theatre

TARGET CULTURE: modern mime

129

If Carlson=s classification is applied on Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai and the other

Japanese visits, we would possibly move in the areas where foreign elements

remain foreign but are, to some extent, used in familiar structures (degree 6) and

in a situation in which an entire performance from another culture is imported or

recreated (degree 7). In the case of the performances of modern mime, we could

cautiously say that some foreign elements were assimilated into the tradition and

absorbed by it (level 2), but not much more.

Yet, there are some interesting parallels to the Japanese martial arts and Zeami=s

writings on nÇ theatre which can be found when Decroux=s and Barrault=s central

concepts of modern mime are analysed. After locating the similarities between nÇ

and Decroux=s theories, at least Wylie seems to be inclined to believing in Barba=s

pre-expressive explanation.385 In Decroux, we can also find traits of the master

teacher who like many Japanese sensei, would devote himself for developing and

perfecting his system and expect total obedience and devotion from his students.

8. Barrault après Decroux: Towards Total Theatre

When it comes to approaching the total theatrical expression typical for Eastern

theatre, the lead was taken by Barrault. His three productions in 1935-39

discarded the principles of pure mime and combined it with Aalien arts@. From the

very first one, they used music and contained words spoken by actors. The texts

were free adaptations of novels. Like many Barrault=s contemporaries, Charles

Aubert would have been pleased: in these productions acting was enriched by

mime. In this process, Barrault also ended up leaving his master, Decroux, and

385 Wylie 1993, 112.

130

following new mentors, namely Antonin Artaud and Paul Claudel, both of whom

were, in very different ways, strongly influenced by Eastern theatre forms.

In search for the influence of traditional Japanese theatre on development of

modern mime we have thus far looked at the visits of Japanese performers and

their performances, which were tailored for Western audiences and Western

performances which were inspired by traditional Japanese theatre. In order to

make Japanese performances accessible, the visitors emphasised dance,

acrobatics and physical expression. Had these performances been more authentic,

what would have been the role of mime in them?

The next chapter concentrates on the role of mime in nÇgaku, kabuki and

bunraku, and examines whether any of these forms is especially close to modern

mime. Jean-Louis Barrault=s impressions during his trip to Japan in the 1950s are

used as a sounding board. Of course, they can not explain the development of

mime in the 1930s, but they might help to understand the parallels that were

found between the theories of Decroux and Zeami and the writings of Barrault

and the principles of Japanese martial arts. The information presented in the next

chapter helps also to analyse Barrault=s productions in the 1930s.

Before proceeding to analyse Barrault=s productions, it is also important to have

a look at the literature on traditional Japanese theatre that was available in France

in the 1930s. This will be done in Chapter VI.

131

V. MIME IN TRADITIONAL JAPANESE THEATRE AND PARALLELS

WITH MODERN MIME

There are several references to mime or pantomime386 in the history of traditional

Japanese theatre forms. Interesting in itself is a myth about the pantomime of

Umisachi, godly fisherman and first professional actor. Legend tells that, after

losing a fight, Umisachi was forced to perform a pantomime describing a struggle

against quickly raising waters387. It is also assumed that there were pantomimic

sections in gigaku388, the music and entertainment part of religious services of the

early seventh century A.D. The Heian period (794-1185 A.D.) theatre form

named shin-sarugaku, which anticipated nÇ theatre and was performed from

mid-1000th century until 13th century, contained mime and comic scetches389.

Comic pantomime, wazaogi, is actually considered one of the major antecedents

of nÇ390 theatre. Mime was also an essential building block of the early kabuki391.

Non-verbal presentation and representation in Japanese theatre can be traced

back to shintÇ and Buddhist rituals. These influences extend also to modern

variations of ritual theatre, such as Edo Kagura.

In the Edo Kagura, the god is silent. He performs his acts as pantomime, no doubt,

because human words are too poor a vehicle to express his essence or revelation.

386 The terms >mime= and >pantomime= are used interchangeably in this context.

Differentiating between them does not seem essential for the scholars of Japanese theatre forms.

387 Ortolani 1995, 8.

388 Ortolani 1995, 31; Immoos 1983, 305; Inoura-Kawatake 1981, 28-29.

389 Inoura-Kawatake 1981, 42-44. These scetches resemble strongly the lazzi of la commedia dell=arte.

390 Ortolani 1995, 58.

391 Ortolani 1995, 175.

132

Silently he acts out his myth.392

Like most Eastern theatre forms, fully-formed nÇgaku and kabuki combine

dance, mime, music and dialogue into an entity. The performances are total

theatre at its purest form. For Western audience, the thin line between mime and

dance seems often blurred. It is also worth noting, that the earliest examples of

Japanese theatre that French and other Western spectators saw, did not contain

much speech and that, for this reason, they were labeled as dance or "Japanese

pantomime"393. Those individuals who were more informed than average

spectators, such as A. Iacovleff and S. Elisseev, felt necessary to clarify the

difference between those forms that used mostly dance and those that relied also

on text and other performance elements:

Parmi les oeuvres dramatiques, une place spéciale était faite aux ballets et aux

pantomimes. Les Japonais distinguent les jikyogen, pièces où le parlé est le plus

important, et les shosagoto où la coreographié est l'élément dominant.394

According to Japanese scholars, kabuki can be best characterized as a quasi-

musical dramatic composite art form, consisting of visual beauty that lays great

emphasis on sensual use of colour and pictorial composition and the complicated

and versatile musicality of the samisen. Dance and music are a part of all, even

the most realistic, kabuki performances.395

392 Immoos 1983, 304.

393 This perception still lives. Fischer-Lichte writes about Ariadne Mnouchkine=s Shakespeare productions: AThe Japanese elements further signified very specific situations; the entrance of court was marked by >Japanese= music, the court ceremonies by mime-like >Japanese= gestures , the uprising of the nobles against Henry, in contrast, by pantomimic >Japanese= gestures (Fisher-Lichte 1990, 282).

394 Iacovleff-Elisseev 1933, 85. Shosagoto refers to kabuki plays which consist primarily of dancing.

395 Inoura-Kawatake 1981, 196.

133

Kabuki actors themselves emphasize the role of dancing in their work and

training396:

At the heart of Kabuki acting is classical Japanese dance; so that 80% of the training

is physical and 20% is vocal. Even in a realistic Kabuki play, the most trivial gestures

are frequently more closely related to dance than to acting. Nearly every gesture is

accompanied by music.397

However, it is interesting that, in many cases, a Western viewer would not

classify a kabuki dance as a dance. Leonard Pronko has interesting notions on it:

- - Kabuki dance, except for its sense of rhythm and control, does not resemble

Western dance in any way. Whereas Western dance tends to pull away from the

ground, to rise in the air, and to become abstract, Kabuki dance in harmony with

gravity is tied quite firmly to the earth, and takes its point of departure the natural

movements of everyday life. Its very essence lies in its gestures, each of which holds a

specific meaning. By nature a dance drama, Kabuki converts words into gestures, each

of which holds a specific meaning. Rather than emphasizing movement, it stresses the

grace and the dynamic tension of poses; Kabuki has been described as moving from

pose to pose.398

It is striking how accurately this description fits to modern, Decrouvian mime.

Unlike Western dance, Decroux=s mime is earthbound. AThe traditional figure of

the dancer is free and soaring; the typical figure of mime is struggling and

earthbound.@399 The movements are sudden and irregular and earthbound like

those of life, observes also Eric Bentley.400

396 Baiko 1982, 100-101.

397 Baiko 1982, 95.

398 Pronko 1969, 146.

399 Decroux 1978, 63. Interview by Vernice Klier. It should be said, though, that Decroux valued the classical ballet as a system.

400 Bentley 1953, 188. The dance critic Raoul Gelabert writes that Aof all the dance

134

Meaningless gesticulation is as alien in traditional Japanese theatre as in modern

mime. Use of gesture is based on intensity and concentration, tension and its

eventual bursting out to expressive gestures. The principle of jo-ha-kyã, applies

both in kabuki and in nÇ. Jo-ha-kyã can be interpreted as a tempo and an energy

concept. In terms of tempo, it can be translated as "slow, gradually accelerating,

and fast", and in terms of energy as "starting, building up, and climaxing".401

There is no naturalistic imitation of movement and gestures in traditional

Japanese theatre, which gives the actor wider possibilities to use, for example, his

feet and legs402. Neither is there any need to display the actor's body: the body

and its muscles are not exposed, but covered with layers of clothes.

A closer look on how mime is used and what kinds of gesture and body

movement are typical for nÇgaku and kabuki, will help to clarify the role of

mime in traditional Japanese theatre. It is also useful to have a look on some

connections between modern mime and bunraku.

1. Kabuki: mie and dan-mari

There are two typical uses of mime in kabuki plays, mie and dan-mari. Mie is a

bout of intense movement which culminates into a sort of tableau vivant, in

which the actor or a group of actors freeze and stand still, creating Aa beauty of

kinetic formation@403.

forms, Decroux prefers the oriental, as being less affected, despite its stylization.@ (Gelabert 1959).

401 Berberich 1984, 212.

402 Pronko 1969, 147.

403 Inoura-Kawatake 1981, 200.

135

Les acteurs jouent au ralenti: tous les muscles hypertendus, ils détaillent le moindre

mouvement et finissent par arrêter une attitude en respiration tenue, les yeux louchant

et la bouche grande ouverte.404

Mie is an integral part of the aragoto kabuki, in which brave heroes and their

adversaries play a central role. However, mie is used also in the softer wagoto

kabuki, and even in realistic sewamono plays. It was a technique which, like

many kabuki techniques, was used also in shimpa405. Heroes of aragoto kabuki

could also excercise their mime skills in such scenes as uprooting the stalks of

bamboo406.

Dan-mari are even closer to Western mime than mie. These are sections that,

like mie, are used as a punctuation of a scene, even if they usually are longer than

mie. A.C. Scott defines dan-mari as pantomime or dumb show, which is closely

connected to fighting scenes and techniques.407Ohashi writes along same lines,

yet adding a note about scenes that are assumed to take place in darkness:

Les dan-maris (bouche close) sont d'autres moments mimés qui ponctuent le

spectacle. Ils durent plus longtemps que les miés et marquent un changement

important dans le destin du héros. Sur scène, plusieurs personnes miment un combat

ou semblent se chercher comme s'il faisait nuit. Pendant ce temps, sur place, d'un seul

coup, le héros change de coutume, et le public comprend que sa vie a changé de

cours.408

404 Ohashi 1987, 134.

405 Nygren 1993, 36.

406 Komintz 1997, 75.

407 Scott 1956/1972, 111.

408 Ohashi 1987, 134.

136

Kabuki battle scenes were highly stylised: the protagonist would fight a group of

attackers using only a fan and not touching anybody. The whole act of

tachimawari, the stage fighting, is actually closer to to choreography than to

realistic fight.409 A modern kabuki actor Nakamura Matazo gives an example of a

tachimawari scene in the kabuki play Benten Kozo:

The star playing Benten mimes his blows and poses dramatically while the other

actors do the acrobatics.410

The fan is an indispensable and versatile prop for a kabuki actor:

In Kabuki, a samurai is returning from the battlefield. In his impressive and heavy

warrior's attire, he is like a big dragonfly which has not yet shed its cocoon. He has

two swords hanging from his belt. He tells about his recent fight. In a while he will

perform it. But he will perform it sitting down, and in this great mime he will not

draw his sword. He will act the battle using only his fan. - - In Kabuki the fan mime is

realistic; the fan deals and repels blows, enters the body, slides over the throat. - -

With the help of a fan one can represent everything which is not a fan.411

409 Leims 1990, 111.

410 Nakamura 1990, 41.

411 Kott 1984, 121.

137

In kabuki, these two types of mime, mie and dan-mari are used in the

culmination points of the performances. However, also individual character

portrayals contain opportunities for mimed expression. Mime is an integral part

of acting technique of kabuki onnagata, the female impersonator. Gestures and

expressions of a "woman" are presented in their ideal, stylised form to the extent

that the actor creates an illusion of being a woman. In nÇ, the actor can be said to

symbolise a woman by wearing a certain mask, costume and wig. In kabuki, he

goes further, by using not only a costume and elaborate make-up412, but also

gestures and voice of a woman. As a matter of fact, training of onnagata begins

with learning to walk, stand and sit appropriately. After this initial training, he

has to learn to move hands and head and get accustomed to using the costumes

and wigs413.

One opportunity for onnagata to express emotions with gestures, is the often-

occurring act of weeping or supressing tears. The actor may dab his eyes with his

sleeve or a hand-towel, slowly moving his head from side to side, or put a paper

or edge of a hand-towel between his teeth and bite on it414. Gestures vary

depending on the age of the character and are codified differently for young,

middle-aged and old women. Smoking kiseru (a long-stemmed pipe), which is

typical for the courtesan and old woman characters, offers several possibilities for

interesting movements and gestures with a power to express a wide range of

emotions.

It is sometimes questioned whether women could create convincing onnagata

characters. Many Japanese traditionalists still consider this impossible, and

Decroux writes about his experience with female impersonation in one of his

productions along same lines:

412 Laderrière 1981, 30.

413 Laderrière 1981, 31.

414 Laderrière, 1981, 32-33.

138

When we produced Little Soldiers we didn=t have any girls in the troupe. So my son

played the role of a young lady who crosses the courtyard of the barracks. Then one

day we had a girl in the troupe. But she couldn=t play the role. We had my son

continue to play it. She was a woman, but she didn=t see what a woman was

because she was a woman!415

A kabuki actor=s face is not covered with a mask, but elaborate make-up is

applied on both female and male characters. A special make-up, kumadori, is

used for heroic and divine characters. Mimicry is used skilfully. The kabuki

actors have a large variety of eye, eyebrow and lip movements to express a wide

range of emotions, much in the same way as Indian and South-East Asian

performers. Surely, Decroux=s preference for neutral mask is a total opposite to

this.

2. NÇ and kyÇgen: Technical Perfection in Silence

While gestures of kabuki are often exaggerated and expressionistic, the

expression of nÇ is characterised by its restraint and slowness. For Paul Claudel,

slowness was one of the two features which Europeans usually found surprising

in nÇ. The other surprising element was the use of chorus416. The chorus in nÇ

never represents an opinion or a character of its own. Its task is to build up

tension and create atmosphere and to add explanations or insights.417

The amount of gestures in nÇ is limited. The gestures used are mostly highly

415 Decroux 1978. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

416 Claudel 1966b, 144-45, 151.

417 Sekine 1985, 102.

139

stylised, far from their realistic origins.

Les gestes du nô sont limités au nombre de cinquante environ; ils sont abstraits à part

quelques exceptions telles que: indiquer le ciel et la terre avec un éventail fermé dans

la main droite; contempler la lune ou le paysage avec la main levée au front; embrasser

le monde en joignant les mains devant soi ou, plus simplement, pleurer en cachant ses

yeux avec la main.418

Yet, even if the symbolism of gestures is marked, one can actually find realistic,

symbolic and abstract elements intertwined in the movement patterns of nÇ.

As Noh developed from a kind of mimetic art, the patterns with concrete

signifigance are far more numerous, yet many of those movements are used

symbolically. Therefore the Noh patterns can be classified as realistic (descriptive),

symbolic, or abstract.419

The realistic patterns generally correspond to the text; the symbolic patterns are

typified by the weeping pattern, and the abstract patterns in the main are

characteristic of the long instrumental dances.420

Like in kabuki, fan is an essential means of expression in nÇ. In this theatrical

writing system, movements of fan are signs of an alphabet. If a fan is open and

covers the face, it means sleep. AFans folded, open, raised above the head, held

horizontally or moved forward, resting on the left or right arm, mean respectively

- listening, brooding, looking at the moon, at the water, at the mountains, at

flowers.@421 Here we can actually find similarity to the conventional gestures of

19th century European pantomime, in which >admiration of a beauty= could be

expressed by a half-circular hand movement in front of one=s face and >love= by

418 Ohashi 1987, 134.

419 Komparu 1983, 217.

420 Komparu 1983, 219.

421 Kott 1984, 112.

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placing crossed palms on one=s heart.

Shamanistic or ritualistic influence behind the slowness of nÇ expression is clear.

Speech is not meant to be direct communication, but rather lyrical evocation of

thoughts. Drums accompany the speech. As in Zen meditation, psychic

concentration results from somatic arrest. The numbness of players mesmerises

the audience422. The themes of nÇ often deal with supernatural things.

- - conclusion est toujours la vanité des joies et des douleurs humaines, et le tout se

termine par une pantomime rituelle - - 423

Komparu Kunio interprets nÇ for Western viewers, empasizing the importance of

movement as an expressive language:

Rather than comparing Noh to opera or drama or ballet, we must classify it as musical

dance-drama, in which mime is a major element.424

Usually, the importance of words recedes towards the end of the play when the

weight of the action is more and more taken over by dance. Finally, the play ends

in silence425. Like in kabuki, a dance is the culmination of a scene. AThe music,

the beauty of form and voice all come to climax in pantomimic dance@, wrote

also William Butler Yeats in his introduction to The Classic Noh Theatre of

Japan426.

422 Kott 1984, 112.

423 Claudel 1966b, 145.

424 Komparu 1983, 215.

425 Immoos 1983, 305.

426 Yeats 1916, 151.

141

Some nÇ actors describe their art as Adance of walking@427. And, indeed, one of

the most interesting features of nÇ acting is the walk.

Slowly, - - Waki comes to the stage in the garb of a Buddhist monk. He walks but at

the same time does not move, as in Zeno's famous paradox of the arrow. All Noh

actors walk, or rather glide, like this. They wear buskin sandals with one strap

between the toes. In this stiff yet steady walk they never lift their heels off the

ground.428

This gliding walk (suriashi), like all movement in nÇ, is founded on a single basic

posture. Correct posture comes from proper placement of pelvis. The stomach

and buttock muscles are held inward, the knees bent slightly, and the whole

pelvis is tilted forward and down. The torso, as well as the neck and the head, are

held straight, which gives the upper body a stiffened look429. On his visit to Japan

in 1960, Barrault learned that the posture has its roots in the posture of greeting.

J'appris ainsi que cette attitude pliée vient de la position de salut. Pour prendre

l'attitude, on s'incline comme pour saluer à la japonaise, le plat des mains sur les

cuisses. Puis le haut du buste se relève, mais pas le bas. Et l'on se met à glisser.

Soulever le pied, par appui du talon, sans bouger un seul orteil, c'est très difficile.430

Walk on a spot was already presented as one of the basic techniques of modern

mime. We have also touched on the importance that modern Japanese

performance, namely the training method of Suzuki Tadashi, lays on the walk.

When Barrault visited Japan, nÇ and kyÇgen performances were arranged for

him. An unnamed actor of the Kanze school and Barrault traded technical secrets

of - walking.

427 Berberich 1984, 211.

428 Kott 1984, 111.

429 Berberich 1984, 207-208.

430 Barrault 1961a, 88.

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Je demandai à mon ami de m'apprendre à marcher comme lui. Il accepta, à la condition

que je lui apprenne la marche sur place que je faisais dans Baptiste; car il avait été

voir notre représentation le même soir.431

Decroux=s work on walking techniques bears similarities to nÇ expression.

Kathryn Wylie writes interestingly about one of the character types, l=homme du

songe (man of dreams), that Decroux used in his training. L=homme du songe

refers to a poetic figure who moves in a dream-like, slow-motion manner, and

whose body is inclined backwards with the bust projected towars the sky:

The most characteristic feature of this figure is the walk, which is similar to the

gliding motions of the No. The body moves evenly and slowly across the floor,

always maintaining the same level.432

The masks affect to movement as well. It has been pointed out that the actor's

vision in the small-eyeholed nÇ mask is very limited, thus forcing him to move

cautiously on the stage433.

- - the eyes look straight forward without staring at any fixed point in space - in other

words, space is grasped as a whole. - - this not only gives the actor a wider range of

vision, but also allows the actor to use a focused gaze to accentuate and stengthen a

particular gesture.434

Physical requirements for a nÇ actor are considerable. In that perspective, it is

extraordinary that there are no separate excercises for developing the body in the

431 Barrault 1961a, 87.

432 Wylie 1994, 185. The other three characters that Decroux used were l=homme du salon, l=homme du sport, and marionette. There is no indication that Decroux would have used these already in the 1930s.

433 Pilikian 1984, 86-87.

434 Berberich 1984, 209.

143

training of a nÇ actor, but that the focus of training is predominantly in mental

and psychological aspects. Body is trained and developed entirely by learning the

essential movement patterns from the masters435.

Dance and mime elements caught Jean-Louis Barrault's eye in kyÇgen:

- - les intermèdes comiques, ou Kyogen, sont comparables à nos farces et à nos soties

du Moyen Age. Mais ce qui caractérise les uns comme les autres, c'est qu'ils sont

surtout de la danse, du chant et de la mimique.436

Barrault saw in the short kyÇgen farces some similarity to the lazzi of la

commedia dell'arte which, of course, were not purely mime or dance either. In

both forms, fun is made of lazy servants, arrogant masters, and vain gods437.

The word kyÇgen is usually translated "wild words" which seems to stress the

importance of dialogue438. Nevertheless, in actual performances, mime skills are

in high demand. Actors perform pure pantomime, without props, as in case of

miming the opening of an imaginary sliding door. Facial expressions are

important, since masks are used only in a limited number of roles. Also acrobatic

skills are essential, especially in performing animal roles439.

A form named Mibu kyÇgen, performed at the Mibu temple in Kyoto, is a totally

different style. In spite of the name kyÇgen, these performances are Buddhist

mystery plays, not comical acts, and one example of ritualistic use of silence.

Speech is not important since the gods would find human words inadequate

435 Emmert 1987, 132.

436 Barrault 1961a, 75.

437 Barrault 1961a, 75.

438 Ortolani 1995, 54.

439 Ortolani 1995, 154-155.

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anyway440. These masked pantomimes influenced also Edo kagura and its

distinctive mime elements441.

3. Bunraku: the Puppets' Influence on Acting

As seen earlier, modern mime had potential in providing Western theatre an ideal

actor, the Über-marionette.

Of all the arts, mime seems closest to the manipulated puppet. For a mime, his own

body is apart from him, more so than an actor; - - a mime moves his body as a

manipulator moves a puppet. A mime is a body, a puppet manipulated, as in Bunraku,

in the sight of the audience.442

Bunraku, the best known of Japanese puppet theatre forms, influenced deeply

both kabuki repertory and acting techniques already in 17th century. Many

kabuki plays are based on bunraku repertoire. Especially, the so-called double-

suicide plays use a narrator and a samisen player, which is otherwise unusual in

kabuki.443 In some respects this practice resembles the use of chorus in nÇ444.

In these kinds of kabuki plays, the actors also speak, and the narrator provides

only additional information on the surroundings and the psychological state of

the characters445. Another special technique is kudoki, which can be found in

many kabuki plays of puppet theatre origin. Kudoki is a passage in which

440 Immoos 1983, 305.

441 Ortolani 1995, 26.

442 Kott 1984, 122.

443 Nakamura 1990, 13-14.

444 Sekine 1985, 102; Inoura-Kawatake 1981, 112.

445 Inoura-Kawatake 1981, 187.

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onnagata, accompagnied by samisen music and narration, moves about the stage

expressing with gestures the sadness of her situation. The actor matches his

dance-like movements to the musical and narrative accompaniment446.

Rather than >puppet theatre=, Barrault prefers to call bunraku >a theatre with

puppets=. He further compares the manipulators of puppets to God and Destiny

and the puppet to the man447. A reference to such entities as God and Destiny, of

course, is a thorougly Western projection and reflects Barrault=s lack of

knowledge of Japanese religion and philosophy in which these concepts do not

have the same meaning as in Western religion.

On his visit to Japan in 1960, Barrault had a chance to see same play as both

kabuki and bunraku versions. He preferred the bunraku version448, even if he was

impressed by the virtuosity of the kabuki actor using the techniques of puppet

theatre.

L'acteur qui tient la place de la poupée est un véritable virtuose, qui s'inspire des

mouvements ondulants de la poupée pour bâtir le style de son jeu.449

In the beginning of 20th century, the proportion of those kabuki plays in which

the actors played the roles of the marionettes was as high as 35%. It may be that

bunraku is the only puppet theatre in the world that has employed techniques

advanced enough to exert a serious influence on live acting. Without this

influence, kabuki could have become a theatre of illusion, like the Western

446 Laderrière 1981, 34.

447 Barrault 1961a, 92.

448 Barrault 1961a, 101.

449 Barrault 1961a, 100.

146

theatre from 19th century on, speculates Ando Tsuruo450. Whereas bunraku and

nÇ with their thoroughly representational nature created by the intermediary level

(the chorus in nÇ, the storyteller in bunraku) between the actor and the audience

and the de-humanized form of the principal characters (the masked performer,

the puppet), could never have done this.

Especially puppets used to portray the main characters of the play, are elaborate

constructions, in which each finger and parts of face can be manipulated

individually. Puppets are manipulated by three puppeteers whose faces are

usually covered451. The most important character in a bunraku performance is,

nevertheless, a storyteller who recites the story to music played by a samisen

player. Bunraku is also called ningyÇ-jÇruri, which means the combination of

puppets and storytelling.

Concept of a technically accomplished mime performing a story read by a

storyteller is not alien to Western theatre. According to a legend of the

pantomimus Livius Andronicus, this type of a performance was the origin of

ancient Roman pantomime. Clearly, this was also the concept behind Craig's ideal

actor, Über-marionette. Marionette was also one of the training characters that

Decroux used, especially to point out the interdependence and articulation of

each segment of the body452. However, it must be kept in mind that, even if

Decroux got very close to Craig=s ideas, he did not unconditionally accept

Craig=s concept of non-human marionette, but wanted to emphasize the role and

possibilities of human body.453 Decroux also pondered the question of puppets

and marionettes in his interviews. For him, hand puppets belonged to same

category as 19th century pantomime. Nevertheless, he seemed cautiously accept

450 Ando 1967, 29.

451 An exception is so called dezukai style in which the face of the master puppeteer is not covered, and the spectator can see his facial expressions.

452 Wylie 1994, 185.

147

marionettes which would be bigger than an average man.

- - the marionette has possibilities that the human body does not. It not only has

facilities but possibilities. There is no doubt that it can move in ways the human

body would find difficult. Marionettes know no impossibility of articulation. - - My

idea of the marionette is an elevated one. I=ve been told that in Far Eastern

countries where marionette thatres exist, marionettes were made to do things

before actors performed them.454

Interestingly, this comment shows that Decroux did not seem to have any first

hand experience of bunraku - or any other form of Far Eeastern puppet or

marionette theatre - even as late as in the 1970s. Whereas Barrault had his first

exposure to nÇ in the late 1950s and an opportunity to visit Japan in 1960 when

he, as seen, was able to see examples of all traditional theatre forms. The first

performance of authentic kabuki in France took place as late as in 1965.455

The Aendless@456 similarities between nÇ and, especially, Decroux=s visions and

training methods have inspired scholars to comparisons, even if they have to

admit that Decroux himself never explicitly said that nÇ would have influenced

him457. Kathryn Wylie sees similarities especially in the performer=s acquisition of

impersonality and in techniques that approach the expression of a puppet or a

marionette:

Corporeal mime also reveals many parallels to the techniques of the No and

indirectly parallels techniques of shamanistic ecstasy, the most important of which

453 Sklar 1985, 71.

454 Decroux 1978. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

455 Pronko 1967, 130.

456 Wylie 1993, 111.

457 Wylie 1994, 177.

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are the acquisition of impersonality and of techniques that permit the performer to

manipulate his or her body like a marionette.458

However, in paralleling the techniques of nÇ and modern mime, I would rather

emphasize the walk and the ritual importance of silence than impersonality and

resemblance to puppets. Strictly speaking, the influence of puppet is not

particularly essential in nÇ acting, it is more obvious in kabuki. Even if Decroux

did not particularly like the puppet theatre, it might be more accurate to trace the

puppet=s influence on his work to European puppet or marionette theatre forms

and the discussion provoked by Gordon Craig=s concept of Über-marionette.

KyÇgen might have been a less likely form to appeal to Decroux, who resented

the comical element in 19th century pantomime, and strived for the serious art of

mime.

- - my father never succeeded in his life in creating a single comic piece. That

annoyed him a lot, since he liked to laugh. He liked comedy, and he couldn=t

succeed in creating it. Everything he made was not comic. Unfortunately, it was

beautiful, tragic, noble, grand.459

It is difficult to say how Decroux would have reacted to an authentic nÇ

performance - he was notoriously impatient with most theatrical experiments and

would walk out of the performance if it did not appeal to him460. It is true that

there is evidence on Decroux having seen Kantan in his youth, and that he

possibly heard some lectures on nÇ at the Vieux-Colombier. Strictly speaking,

Kantan was no more authentic nÇ than the >kabuki= of Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai

458 Wylie 1994, 179.

459 Decroux, M. 1997, 47. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

460 Barba 1997, 8.

149

performance, which used some kabuki techniques, was authentic kabuki.

Surprisingly, kabuki has not been taken up as often as nÇ as a potential influence

on modern mime. One reason for this might be that in the beginning of 20th

century, Western interest increasingly shifted from the earlier preoccupation with

kabuki to an interest in the more spiritual nÇ. A closer study of the nature of

kabuki was ignored.

- - peu de chercheurs européens s=intéressaient profondément au kabuki. De ce fait,

lorsque, dès le début du 20e siècle, Nöel Péri et Paul Claudel s=entusiasment pour

le nô, le terrain est prêt pour que l=Europe s=essaye à lire cette écriture encore

impregnée de chamanisme et de magie, quoique codifiée déjà par Zéami depuis

près de cinq cents ans.461

Yet, in kabuki, we can find elements that would be in alignment with modern

mime, especially the earthbound dancing style and the importance of classical

Japanese dance training for the kabuki actor. Expressive poses (mie), scenes

without dialogue (dan-mari), the highly pantomimic fighting scenes

(tachimawari) and, also, stylised and constructed performing techniques of

onnagata, evoke interesting points of comparison. Mie bears resemblance to

l=attitude: both are highly condensed poses, results of an intense movement

which ends in >freezing=462. Of mime scholars, Annette Lust has taken up this

parallel:

The mime, Aa sculptor of air@ becomes a statue when he stops moving. Although he

emphatically denies any debt to Oriental theatre, his approach recalls the Japanese

theatre when, at the end of a lively dance, the Japanese mime-actor freezes like a

461

Shionoya 1986, 31.

462 The idea of >freezing> applied also to other theatrical renovators of the period. Norbert Mannheimer sees similarities between Brecht=s concept of >Durchkältung= for which he found sounding board from the Chinese theatre. (Mannheimer 1990, 27).

150

statue and conveys the impression of crystallized action. Decroux=s art attains

similar effects ending in intense stillness, the statue seen as a distillation of the

beauty that has gone before, a suggestion of what might follow.463

Fighting scenes, which would be more realistic than fighting in nÇ, would appear

in Decroux=s work throughout his career. And the whole process of constructing

a character through physical expression resembles the construction of onnagata.

Again, we are faced with the question whether these parallels reflect just the

>Barbaric= pre-expressive taking multiple forms. Wylie, in her search for the

shamanistic element, seems to incline in this direction in her analysis of

similarities between nÇ and Decroux=s corporeal mime. Could there still be a

source that could have filtered into the experiments of Decroux and Barrault?

What literature on traditional Japanese theatre was available before and during

the 1930s?

463 Lust 1993, 19-20.

151

VI. 1930s LITERATURE AND EXPERIENCE ON TRADITIONAL

JAPANESE THEATRE

1. Literature as a Source of Inspiration

Une seule soirée au théâtre nippon révérbera mieux le Japon et son tempérament que

toute une littérature.464

wrote Yamata Kikou about the visit of the Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai group in Le

Figaro. However, the importance of literature as a source of understanding and

misunderstanding a foreign culture has been emphasized by scholars of

orientalism and interculturalism.465

The Orient studied was a textual universe by and large; the impact of Orient was

made through books and manuscripts.466

Almost from earliest times in Europe the Orient was something more than was

empirically known about.467

In the 1930s France, possibilities for first-hand experience on traditional, or even

approximately traditional, Japanese theatre forms were limited. It is thus logical

to assume that interested individuals would turn to literature for information and

inspiration. We have already seen how important role the study of literature

played in producing the nÇ play Kantan at the École du Vieux-Colombier. The

whole production was basically built on Suzanne Bing=s study on the translations

464

Yamata. Le Figaro 4.5.1930.

465 Savarese 1990, 47; Said 1991, 94.

466 Said 1991, 52.

467 Said 1991, 55.

152

of nÇ plays to French by Nöel Péri and to English by Arthur Waley, and the

introductory chapters that both translators wrote to the respective collections.

Both Noël Péri's Cinq Nô and Arthur Waley's The Noh Plays of Japan were

published in 1921. In addition to twenty nÇ texts, Waley's book contains sixty

pages of general introduction and a separate introduction to each play. As the

title indicates, Péri's book contains only five translations. The French had to wait

some years to catch up with the amount of English translations: fourteen new nÇ

translations to French by M.G. Renondeau were published from 1926 to 1933 in

the Bulletin de l'École française de l'Extrême-Orient.468

The 77 pages long introduction to Péri's book is diligently written and describes

the elements of different types of nÇ clearly and scholarly. In addition to this,

there is a separate introduction and a set of notes to each play. This background

information actually takes more space than the playtexts. According to René

Sieffert, Péri was not the first foreigner who was interested and who wrote about

nÇ, but he was the one who inaugurated the scientific study of this art form.469

Even if Péri was not the first French writer interested in Japanese theatre, it

cannot be said that there was an enormous amount of literature on the topic

before his book. The first report on Japanese theatre was published in France by

Georges Bousquet in 1874.470 It was followed by A. Lequeux's study Le Théâtre

au Japon, published in the Revue d'art dramatique in 1888. In this article,

Lequeux emphasised the role of pantomime in Japanese theatre and also

evaluated Japanese actors as the best mimes in the world. He went as far as

denouncing Western mimes as vulgar tricksters, and their art as a series of

468 Sieffert 1960, 7.

469 Sieffert 1960, 7.

470 Shionoya 1986, 23.The article was published in the Revue des Deux mondes 15.8.1874.

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conventional gestures with grimaces.471 This was something that Decroux would

certainly have agreed with. There were also aggressive and condescending views,

as those of Jules Lemaître, which described Japanese theatre as violent, bloody,

animalistic, sensual, stagnated and infantile.472

Both Bousquet and Lequeux wrote about kabuki, which is logical, since kabuki

was the theatre form that Japanese themselves chose to represent the Western-

oriented Japan of Meiji period. Lequeaux's study also included a translation of a

kabuki play, Le Printemps sanglant aux fleurs de prunier473. NÇ, and bunraku

became objects of scholarly interest later. It should be remembered that Zeami=s

writings on the art of nÇ were published in Japan only in 1909. Coincidentally,

Nöel Péri's own studies on nÇ originate from 1909 when he published a series of

articles in the Bulletin de l'École française de l=Extrême-Orient. 474

All these works were published in a scholarly series, and were not accessible to

general audience in same extent as Péri=s 1921 monograph Le Cinq Nô. Four

years later, in 1925, Albert Maybon's, even more accessible, Le Théâtre Japonais

was published. It is a more popular and wider presentation of various traditional

and modern theatre and entertainment forms than Péri's work. It does not contain

any playtexts nor analyses of Zeami's theories like Péri's book, but is rather a

description of the writer's studies and observations during his five year stay in

Japan. Nevertheless, Maybon gives outlines of shosagoto and describes some

modern plays. It was Maybon who adapted one of those, Le Masque, for Firmin

Gémier in 1927. There are plenty of illustrations, such as photographs on masks,

471 Lequeux 1888.

472 Shionoya 1986, 28-30. Leonard Pronko (Pronko 1967,119) picks up condescending tones from Bousquet and Lequeux as well.

473 The play was written by Mokuami (Ume no haru tate-shino gosho zome).

474 The nÇ plays that are included in this collection are Oimatsu (Le Vieux Pin) Zeami, Atsumori Zeami, Sotoba-Komachi (Komachi au Stûpa) Kanami, Ohara go kÇ (La Visite Imperiale à Ohara) Zeami, and Aya no Tsuzumi (Le Tambourin de Damas) attr.to Zeami.

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actors, scenes, woodblock prints, and drawings.

Maybon also included a chapter, in which he deals with the comic spirit in

Japanese theatre, in his book. After reading it, the reader would definitely not

remain under the impression that all Japanese theatre were as sacred and serious

as nÇ. The role of kyÇgen, the comic interlude of nÇ, is emphasized as well.

Après les danses, les lazzi, les pantomimes, et tous les tours des bateleurs, l'esprit

comique, inhérent au tempérament japonais, s'est exprimé dans des saynetès mises sur

la scène du nô et qui prirent le nom de kyôgen ("paroles folles"). Point de décors,

d'accessoires. La distribution les lieux est indiquée par les acteurs, au nombre

généralement de deux. L'action va vite; elle s'achève d'un coup, et, comme il n'y a pas

de rideaux, les personnages s'enfuient, l'un poursuivant l'autre. Le kyôgen est

l'intermède obligatoire d'une représentation de nô.475

Chefs d'œuvre de Tchikaimatsou, le grand dramaturge Japonais476, a collection

of translations of Chikamatsu Monzaemon's playtexts was published in 1929. The

book, a translation from English translation, contains six major works of this

playwright, who wrote at the turn of 17th and 18th centuries. Chikamatsu is best

known as a bunraku writer, although he wrote also for kabuki and, of course,

many of his bunraku pieces were later adapted for kabuki.

The English translation was done by Miyamori AsatarÇ, who also wrote a 76-

page introduction in which he describes not only Monzaemon's work but also the

other traditional theatre forms. The book also contains more than 70 illustrations,

both photographs of contemporary actors and historical materials.

In 1928, Ichikawa Sadanji=s kabuki group visited Moscow. A strange fruit of this

visit filtered to France as an impressive folio of 500 copies created by A.

475

Maybon 1925, 40.

476 Tchikaimatsou 1929.

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Iacovleff and S. Elisseev. The book, published in Paris 1933, does not directly

mention that the authors would have seen the Moscow performance - although

there is a reference to it477. Neither does it give any information on the authors

themselves, or reveal where they could have obtained their, obviously very good,

knowledge on kabuki. They seem to know a lot of its history, and also of modern

kabuki companies and performers. Neither does it give any information on the

source of the vivid illustrations, which seem to be drawn of live models. There is

no introduction or bibliography.

Iacovleff=s and Eliseev=s attitude towards unprofessional imitators of kabuki, such

as Sadayakko, is critical. The writers describe these performances with a word

'caricature' even if

Les spectateurs parisiens, pour qui le théâtre japonais était une chose inconnue,

admirèrent les scènes de harakiri, les pantomimes jouées dans de beaux kimonos, et la

troupe connut une ère de gloire.478

Interestingly enough, they do not mention the Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai company by

name, but it can be assumed that it would have been classified as unprofessional

imitators as well.

One more book deserves attention: the translation of Basil Hall Chamberlain's

Moeurs et coutumes du Japon, from 1931. In this book Chamberlain deals,

among other things, with theatre, and clarifies especially the difference between

nÇ and kabuki.479 Interestingly, Chamberlain finds similarities between nÇ and

477 Iacovleff-Eliseev 1933, 44. Shionoya (1986, 57) mentions Serge Elisseev as an

author of a 1926 article on Chikamatsu Monzaemon and the effect of puppets to Japanese acting.

478 Iacovleff-Eliseev 1933, 38.

479 According to Shionoya, Chamberlain=s book was the first of the 19th century works (it was published in English in 1873) that managed to clarify the differences between traditional theatre forms (Shionoya 1986, 30).It should be said, though, that Alexandre Benazet published a thesis in which he compared nÇ and kabuki in 1901.

156

ancient Greek theatre, and thinks that, for this reason, nÇ would be more

accessible for Western audiences than kabuki480. Similar ideas are presented also

in Miyamori's introduction to Chikamatsu translations:

- - aujourd'hui, elles (nÇ plays) sont hautement appréciées par les Européens cultivés,

probablement parce qu'elles flattent un goût qui discerne en ces productions certaines

resemblances curieuses avec la tragédie grecque.481

The most obvious similarities between nÇ and ancient Greek drama are metric

singing, religious element, use of masks on the principal actors, chorus, and the

dignified and reserved style of playing.

It can be concluded, that by the beginning of 1930s, all forms of traditional

Japanese theatre were introduced in France in literature which consisted of travel

reports, playtexts, and theoretical analyses that grew increasinly sophisticated

through the years. Thus basic materials were available for the possibly interested.

What is even more interesting, is that there was an influental figure in French

theatrical life, who was well-acquainted with traditional Japanese theatre forms.

2. Paul Claudel - un rapporteur par excellence

The French writer, poet, playwright and diplomat Paul Claudel spent several

years in Japan in the 1920s. He left there as the French ambassador in 1921, and

stayed in this position until the beginning of 1927. One outcome of this period

was his book L'Oiseau noir dans le soleil levant, published in 1929. Among

impressions on culture and contemporary events, Claudel deals with all the

traditional Japanese dance and theatre forms, bugaku, bunraku, nÇ, and kabuki,

480 Shionoya 1986, 30-31.

481 Miyamori 1929, 16.

157

which he had a chance to see there and which he also arduously studied.

Claudel=s book is not a systematic presentation of the art. It is strongly influenced

by his preferences: for example, nÇ gets considerably more space and more

thorough treatment than the other forms. Interestingly, nÇ is also presented

without kyÇgen. Bunraku seems to have inspired him, but kabuki left him more

or less mystified. In both nÇ and bunraku sections, he makes several references to

gestures and movements of puppets and actors, describing them as ghostlike,

evoking impressions of dream, trance and hypnosis.482 The gliding walk of shite

captures his imagination, as well as the statuesque quality of acting483.

Considering Claudel=s own inclination to spiritual and religous, his desire to

understand Japanese nature, which he characterised as possessing a sense of

mystery and acceptance of the unknown484, is not surprising. Living with the

nature, patriotism, and religious sentiment were also typical for it485. Claudel

also paid attention to the keen interest that educated Japanese had in nÇ and that,

in addition to having artistic and religious value, this theatre form also had

educational value: it taught both artist and spectator the value of gesture and the

importance of controlling one=s thoughts, utterances, and movements486.

Claudel=s book received a fair amount of publicity and was a valuable

contribution to the knowledge of Japanese culture in France.487 Claudel also

contributed in introduction of modern Japanese drama to French readers. In

1927, he wrote a short foreword to a bi-lingual book of two modern Japanese

482 Claudel 1929a, 87, 94, 97.

483 Claudel 1929a, 97-98.

484 Claudel 1929a, 21.

485 Claudel 1929a, 22-29.

486 Claudel 1929a, 98-99.

487 There are several reviews in Collection Rondel (Rf 54963). Most of them mention the theatre chapters of the book. Comœdia 11.5.1929 published the entire chapter on nÇ (Claudel 1929b).

158

plays translated into French by Maryama JuntarÇ.488

So inspired was Claudel by traditional Japanese theatre that he tried the style

himself. His play La Femme et son ombre was performed at the Imperial Theatre

of Tokyo already in 1923. The French could read a mention to it from L'Œuvre

of the season 1923-24:

Son nouveau ballet intitulé La Femme et son ombre a été representé Aen pur style

japonais@, en mars dernier par le Hagorono-Kaï, groupe de jeunes artistes Kabuki

réputiés.489

The second version of La Femme et son ombre was completed in 1926 and

performed also at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo.

The story in both of these versions is the same. The place of action is a solitary

place in the frontier of two worlds. There is a big screen on the stage. The

characters are an ancient warrior and two women, one of them a shadow of the

other. After chasing her/them on stage, in an action which resembles dance, the

warrior kills the shadow with his sword, and ends up killing the real woman at

the same time. The second version contains more written dialogue and

instructions and songs for the warrior and the woman - or rather for the choir -

than the first version.490

It is not totally surprising that in France, the work was referred as a ballet, since

some years earlier, in 1917, Claudel had written a dance play, L'Homme et son

désir, which was inspired by Nijinsky. He was also interested in Jacques-

Dalcroze's techniques, and aware of the importance of gestures and the body in

488 Kikuchi 1927. The plays are named L=Amour est une maladie and La Providence

du moment. Claudel=s foreword is dated 14.2.1927 in Tokyo.

489 O'Hashi, L'Œuvre 1923-24.

490 Claudel 1965, 647-648. The 1926 version (ibid. 651-653).

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the actor=s work:

Quant au geste, aucun acteur moderne ne paraît y attacher la moindre importance.

Ça ira toujours. La plupart du temps, le débit est accompagné d'un geste nerveux et

court des avant-bras et d'une espèce de trémolo des mains plus ou moins rapide,

suivant l'émotion que le personnage est censé éprouver. Aucun n'a la moindre idée

des resources immenses et multiples d'expression que le corps humain, je dis le

corps humain tout entier, depuis la tête et le visage jusqu'aux doigts de pied, recèle

pour le drame.491

The style of La Femme et son ombre is, indeed, an interesting question. It was

not dance, even if the writer of L=Œuvre so thought. It was not nÇ, at least not in

its first version. It was played by young actors who had kabuki training. Even

Claudel himself had difficulties categorising it492:

Car La Femme et son ombre, surtout dans sa première version, ne saurait être

considéré comme un véritable nô. Par son importante mise en scène, par le recours

à plusieurs orchestres et l=introduction de ballets, cette oeuvre apparâit comme une

pièce de Kabuki moderne. Claudel a hésité lui-même: il l'appellera un mimodrame,

un ballet "une sorte de nô@, une pièce relevant du Kabuki, "forme plus moderne" du

nô.493

There is no doubt that the period spent in Far East494 influenced Claudel=s entire

work on many levels:

- - c'est justice de reconnaître que la fréquentation de l'Orient sa donné au poète

491 Claudel 1966b, 151.

492 In Claudel=s collected works it is called >scénario pour une mimodrame= (Claudel 1965, 647).

493 Hue, 320.

494 In addition to Japan, Claudel had also lived in China in 1895-1905. He had first visited Japan already in 1901.

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une conscience plus claire de sa mission artistique. Je pense notamment que

l'exemple du Nô japonais a pu inspirer à Claudel certains détails de la mise en

scène du Soulier de satin.495

John Gillespie is convinced that acquaintance with Japanese theatre forms

confirmed Claudel's ideas on theatre and refined his style, and that the influence

of nÇ in his playwriting is evident in most of his plays written during and after the

stay in Japan.496 The impact arises mainly from three aspects of this theatre form:

the peculiar use of dream, the figure of the shite and the retrospective

dimension.497 Claudel himself seems to have been most impressed about the

slowness of nÇ:

L=élément essentiel est un élément de lenteur: C=est l=art au ralenti. Les personnages

restent immobiles pendant des heures - - . Les gestes des acteurs se réduisent aux

changements absolument significatifs, mais ils les développent sur toute une

période. En Occident l=acteur fait toujours des gestes trop rapides.498

It should be said that in the 1920s, Claudel's attitude toward Western nÇ

productions was cautious. There was a good reason to admire nÇ, he wrote,

Mais il est très difficile de s'en faire une idée en France. Il y manquera toujours la

musique, la mimique et cette espèce d'atmosphère sombre et surnaturelle.499

495 Madaule, La Vie intellectuelle 10.11.1929. Le Soulier de satin would be the first of

the series of Claudel=s plays that Barrault directed at la Comédie Française in the 1940s.

496 Especially the third act of Le Soulier de satin (1924); the second version of La

Femme et son ombre (1926); Le Livre de Christophe Colomb (1927); Jeanne d=Arc au bûcher (1935); Le Festin de la Sagesse (1935); L=Histoire de Tobie et de Sara (1938) (Gillespie1983).

497 Gillespie1983.

498 Claudel 1925. Interview by Lefèvre.

499 Claudel 1966a, 150.

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However, this attitude, expressed in the 1920s, did not prevent him from trying

nÇ style in the 1930s. In 1934, Ida Rubinstein, Athe undisputed mistress of

movement and attitude@500, commissioned a scenario for a biblical play from him,

and at that time he felt comfortable trying nÇ style in it. The result was Le Festin

de la Sagesse which was performed in 1935. The play is based on the biblical

legend, a parable from the Gospels, in which the king invites the guests to

celebrate his son=s nuptials. For Rubinstein, Claudel created a role of La Sagesse

(Wisdom), the equivalent of the king.501 AUn essai d'adaptation du nô japonais@502

is written around the same time as the play. In this article, Claudel, again, writes

appreciatively about nÇ, referring to its aristocratic and esoteric character and

comparing it to Spanish autos503.

The play, which has four parts, can for several reasons be called a mimodrama504.

When writing the play, Claudel entertained himself with several, strongly visual

stage images,505 which seem to have been inspired by American silent film

comedies. These were omitted from the final version, but he gives a lot of

instructions on stage movements and groupings of characters.506

The play did not receive as good reviews as the two other biblical productions

which Claudel created in the 1930s, Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher (1935) and

L'Histoire de Tobie et de Sara (1938). These were not consciously created in nÇ

500 Claudel 1966a, 156.

501 Claudel 1966b, 148.

502 Claudel 1966b, 143-153.

503 Claudel 1966b, 144.

504 Claudel 1966b, 143.

505 Claudel 1966b, 148, 150.

506 Claudel 1965, 1199-1213.

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style even though they did use the chorus, music, choreography, and mime507. It

seems that Claudel's intuition proved right: it was not easy to realise nÇ in

France. According to Gillespie even Le Festin de la Sagesse "falls short of the

delicate flower of the Noh", and that Claudel=s borrowings from nÇ are random

rather than systematic.508

Nevertheless, the power of slow gesture raises up over and over in Claudel's

writings during the 1930s. Even banal movements take deeper meaning when

movement is slow and precise509. The sign and the gesture of making a cross, is

the key to Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher 510. In L'Histoire de Tobie et Sara, there is a

slowly mimed scene, in which angel Raphael descends to the stage. Claudel gives

detailed instructions for his hand and arm movements511. In Jeanne d'Arc, he

marches in a bunch of animal characters512 - comparisons to the Compagnie des

Quinze's Noé of 1931, are tempting513.

In 1938, he wrote a draft for Le Jet de pierre, a Asuite plastique@, a series of

poems of movement. Petit and Kempf consider this the furthest point of Claudel's

research on gesture514 - and again Claudel seems to have had in mind the slow

movement of nÇ. He never finished this work, the dozen parts of which contain

such intriguing titles as 'The Conquest of the Right Hand from the Left' or 'The

Arrow' or 'The Bunch of Grapes'.

507 Claudel 1966b, 163-164.

508 Gillespie1983.

509 Claudel 1966b, 87.

510 Claudel 1966b, 156.

511 Claudel 1966b, 164.

512 Claudel 1965, 1217-1242.

513 See Chapter VII.1.

514 Claudel 1966b, 161.

163

It is clear that Claudel=s impact went far beyond his books. He was influental in

the 1930s French cultural and theatrical life, and it can be assumed that the

knowledge on Japanese theatre that he had, was directly and indirectly

transmitted to quite a wide circle of individuals515. Among the young theatre

practioners who came into contact with him in the 1930s, was Jean-Louis

Barrault.

515 During his stay in Japan Claudel corresponded with several French artists and

intellectuals, among them Jacques Copeau.

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VII. JEAN-LOUIS BARRAULT=S PRODUCTIONS IN THE 1930s

1. Autour d=une mère

Autour d=une mère was Jean-Lous Barrault's first independent theatre

production. It was performed four times at the Théâtre de l'Atelier on June 4-7,

1935. At that point, he was ready to sum up the theatrical ideas and impressions

he had accumulated during the first half of the decade.516 The production was an

eclectic mixture of influences from Dullin's L'Atelier and, at the same time, a

break from those, since Barrault, with youthful fervour, accumulated impressions

from different directions and people that he came in contact with. Both his

experimentation on mime with Étienne Decroux and deep influence of modern

American literature can also be seen in it.

Barrault dramatised Autour d=une mère from William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.

The French name of the novel is Tandis que j'agonise,517 but the publisher did

not give him permission to use the title. Faulkner=s novel, originally from 1930, is

a story of

a mother who, having fallen ill, wants her coffin to be made in her presence by one

of her children, and her remains to be taken on the family cart, attended by all her

family, to the town - Jefferson - where her parents lie buried. To this central subject

the father and the five children react in accordance with their own individual

natures and passion. The action takes place in our own time, among the peasants of

the Mississippi. Season of hot weather and rains. Life is hard, they are poor. In the

family there is a 'living lie': Jewel, the natural son of the mother and the village

priest. Remorse.@518

516 Barrault 1972, 84.

517 Barrault read the translation of the novel by Maurice Coindreau (Barrault 1972, 84).

518 Barrault 1974, 67 (translation by Jonathan Griffin); Barrault 1972, 85.

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The novel consists of monologues of the Bundren family members, their

neighbours, and the people they meet on their journey. The amount of dialogue is

sparse, and it is hidden in the monologues.519 The published playscript shows that

the first part of Barrault=s adaptation of the novel into >l=action dramatique= takes

place in the village, the second part describes the voyage to Jefferson, and the

third part happens in the town.520

Jean Dorcy calls Autour d=une mère >a spoken drama with mime insertions=. He

uses the same description also for the production of Numance (1937), whereas

La Faim (1939) is >a drama where speech and the mime are closely mingled=521.

Thomas Leabhart describes Barrault=s early work, i.e. these three 1930s

productions, as vocal mime combined with spoken text:

Vocal mime which began in the improvisations at the Vieux-Colombier, continued

in Decroux=s teaching and performance, quite naturally found an important place in

Barrault=s first performance piece, and later figured importantly in Jean and Marie-

Hélène Dasté=s Sumida.522

Barrault himself writes that the production of Autour d=une mère was Aun

transposition du roman en mimodrame@523 and could, to some extent, be

understood as a manifest for revival of the art of mime524, but essentially it was

519 Faulkner 1930/1964.

520 Frank-Astre 1954, 56-57. This document is the closest to a manuscript of the play. It includes Barrault=s original notes and comments by the authors, of whom the journalist André Frank was closely involved with management of the production.

521 Dorcy 1961, 45.

522 Leabhart 1989, 65. Sumida which Leabhart mentions here in passim would be a most interesting production of a nÇ play by Marie-Hélène and Jean Dasté in 1947.

523 Barrault 1949, 74.

524 Barrault 1953.

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silent theatre, in which the actors do not say anything even if they could speak:

Ils ne parlent pas. Ils agissent. Mais ils ne sont pas muets. Le silence n=est pas la

surdité. Chaque bruit prend son importance. Personne n=a retiré le son de l=image.

C=est du théâtre Aparlant@, où les gens ne disent rien.525

Barrault was fascinated by the silent behavior of the simple, primitive526

characters who spoke only to themselves. This description reminds of a trend in

French theatre called le théâtre du silence - or Al=école du nudisme verbal ou,

plus exactement l=école du mutisme@527 in the 1920s. One exponent of this genre

was Jean-Jacques Bernard=s play Martine, which is a story of a simple servant

who suffers in silence for not being able to articulate her feelings towards her

socially superior master.528 It should be said, that Barrault was not as influenced

by psychoanalysis as representatives of le théâtre du silence, and that in actual

performance, the major difference between the theatre of silence and Barrault=s

production, was the demand for physical expression of the actor, which went as

far as requiring the actor to be able to portray both characters and environment.

Approximately dozen actors were involved529, many of whom played five or six

525

Barrault 1972, 85.

526 Barrault 1972, 84.

527 Brisson 1943, 41.

528 It should be said that not all plays of this genre described rural, inarticulate people. For example, the characters of Henri Lenormand=s plays, also considered to be examples of the théâtre du silence, were mostly from the middle-class.

529 Barrault had far from a coherent ensemble at his disposal. The actors changed during the rehearsal period, and some of them did not even want to use their real names in the cast list (Barrault 1972, 86-87). Among the most experienced of them was Jean Dasté, a former Copiau (and a son-in-law of Copeau) and a founding member of la Compagnie des Quinze. André Frank (Frank 1954, 45) lists following actors, in addition to Dasté and Barrault himself: Georges Lenoir, Paul Higonenc, Baby Guy, Yves Gladine, Marthe Herlin, Genica Athanasiou, Leblanc, Michel François, Regis, Arsène Arcadelt, and Dina German.

167

roles530.

Les acteurs assument à la fois les personnages et ce qui les entoure: la rivière,

l'incendie, le crissement d'une scie qui effrite le bois. L'acteur: un instrument

total.531

For example, the play includes a scene in which the funeral procession has to

cross an overflowing river. In this case the actors, in addition to playing the

characters, mimed the movement of the water by dancing with extended arms

and making wave-like movements.532

Barrault himself played the role of Jewel, the bastard son. One of his ambitions

was to combine the man and the animal in a process of total acting.

Encore une fois je voulais que l'acteur fût un instrument complet, capable de

suggérer et la bête et le cavalier et les deux traversant un gué ou poursuivis par des

busards. Interpréter à la fois l'Etre et l'Espace.533

The human-animal theme keeps on repeating in the first part of the play: actors

are instructed to become human animals, and also, they are said to sense the

approach of death like animals.534 The theme of flood, differences between the

brothers, carpentry, and animal imagery, remind of la Compagnie des Quinze=s

1931 production of Noé, the story of Noah, the great flood, and the construction

of the ark, and, indeed, Barrault admits having admired Noé, as well as the other

530 Labisse 1954, 26.

531 Barrault 1972, 85.

532 Stern, Variety 19 June 1935.

533 Barrault 1972, 86.

534 Frank - Astre 1954.

168

Quinze productions535. In Noé, mimed animal figures are made to enter in the

beginning and they appear also later in the play. However, there is no attempt in

Noé to create metaphysical human-animals, as Barrault would aim to do. They

would remain as amusing animal figures. As far as the acting style of Noé is

concerned, it is, nevertheless, interesting, that Pierre Fresnay, who played the

role of Noah, was compared to a giant marionette, and one of the villagers was

said to wear a semi-Japanese mask536. An occasional reviewer saw similarity with

Greek tragedies,537 but for most critics, the tone of Noé seemed much lighter,

reminding one of children=s play.538 The flood theme was repeated yet in another

la Compagnie des Quinze production, La Loire (1933), in which plenty of

mimed expression was also used.539

The use of mime in les Quinze productions is not surprising. Their work was

built on training which originated from l=École du Vieux-Colombier and les

Copiaus, same sources which strongly influenced Étienne Decroux=s work. In

Michel Saint-Denis= words:

535 Barrault 1974, 63. La Compagnie des Quinze had broken up in 1935 after

approximately ten productions which were mostly based on the texts of André Obey and directed by Michel Saint-Denis (Saint-Denis 1960, 44). In Noé, Jean Dasté, who performed also in Barrault=s production, played the role of one of Noah=s sons. Susan Bing played the role of Noah=s wife and Marie-Hélène Dasté one of the daughter-in- laws (Noé: hand programme, Rondel Rt 3732/Compagnie des Quinze Vol.1) It is also interesting that Barrault refers to numerous discussions with Marie-Hélène Dasté during the six month period while he was preparing L=Autour d=une mère (Barrault 1972, 87).

536 Boissy, Comœdia 21.1.1931.

537 Rengeard, Revue Française 25.1.1931.

538 Many reviewers make references to children=s play or operetta (Boissy, Comœdia 21.1.1931; Agate, Sunday Times 12.6.1931; J.G.B. The Evening News 13.6.1931)

539 A- - in André Obey=s Loire - - realism was in war with symbolism. This was a subject for musical treatment or even a ballet. The author seems to have gasped this, for he has employed sound to help his idea; he has also made his Loire and her daughters act in styled manner. He introduces an owl (a fine conception), a fox and an old oak tree. The daughters of the Loire wear masks and speak staccato nonsense, and the waters of the Loire are grotesque pantomimic figures.@, writes a critic (Baughan, News Chronicle 1933) about the groups London performance at Wyndham=s Theatre.

169

We had worked ten years together. We had developed a lot of possibilities as a

company: we were mimes, we were acrobats; some of us could play musical

instruments and sing. We could invent characters and improvise. In fact we were a

chorus with a few personalities sticking out rather than actors ready to act the usual

repertory, classical or modern.540

However, it seems that Barrault went further in the use of silence, gesture and

mime than les Quinze in any of their productions: the whole performance of

Autour d=une mère lasted two hours, but there was merely thirty minutes of text

in it.541 The scene with horse - Barrault's mime at its purest - lasted ten minutes.

In it

The horse was represented by a painted wooden head fastened to Barrault's belt.

With the lower half of his body, Barrault played the prancing, butting, kicking

animal, struggling to rid itself of its rider; with the upper half he was Jewel, the

man, beating the wild beast into submission.542

A French critic gives a detailed description of the scene and the construction of

the human-animal on the stage:

dans son Acheval@, on le voyait peu à peu s=intégrer à la nature même de l=animal en

liberté. Cela commençait par le regard qui suivait le rythme de l=animal en liberté,

puis ce rythme commençait à gagner le corps entier, une course échevelée donnait

l=homme élan et énergie. Et puis, soudain, la lutte s=engageait, l=homme des pieds à

la tête subissait le flux indompté et lorsqu=il réussissait à maintenir l=animal sous sa

volonté. On le sentait faisant corps avec lui, vivant minotaure, cheval par la moitié

du corps, et guide par le seul buste.543

540 Saint-Denis 1960, 43.

541 Barrault 1972, 85.

542 Felner 1986, 90.

543 Delarue, Paris Soir 13.12.1947.

170

The mother's dying scene is another interesting example of abstract, mimed

expression. Jean Dorcy has made observations on this particular part:

Another of Barrault's contributions (to the mime) is the nature of his images. One

might call them images of substitution; i.e., images not derived from the rhythms,

movements or forms of a situation or of a given type. - - this is how he composes

Death:

- Suddenly the bust draws itself up, the right arm desperately extended toward the

sky;

- A second of absolute immobility;

- The extended arm is lowered, palm turned toward the ground, slowly, very, very

slowly;

- The arm passes before the head, before the neck, before the bust, thus blotting out

life...

Sublime vertical death! This sublimity arises, I believe, not from the tragic element

inherent in the theme of death, but from the nature of the images found by the poet

Jean-Louis Barrault.544

A third, powerfully mimed scene is the one in which the daughter of the family

makes love to a farmer and grows pregnant in front of the audience:

After her lover goes, she rises, takes a deep breath, and then relaxes into a state of

animal happiness. - - She feels twice around the fulness of her breasts; her hands

descend to her stomach, then to her buttocks, undulating her dress. In a surge of

femininity, she fixes her hair and her clothes. She stops suddenly. Surprised, she

stares at her navel. Her body gets heavier as she slowly takes on the walk of a

pregnant woman.545

544 Dorcy 1961, 56. Étienne-Bertrand Weill=s photo of Jean-Louis Barrault in the

process of this vertical death is often reproduced. It is included also in Dorcy=s book (Dorcy 1961). The picture shows Barrault half-naked, eyes closed, sitting in a >semi- lotus position=, holding his right arm up and the palm horizontally above his head. Meditation or yoga come easily to mind. In this picture Barrault is not wearing the mother=s original costume, a long skirt, nor the mask and the wig.

545 Felner 1986, 92. Felner is strongly of the opinion that this kind of a scene could

171

There is no indication in Barrault=s memoirs or in other documents, that he would

have actively studied anything related to traditional Japanese theatre during the

preparation of Autour d=une mère. However, such elements as use of chorus and

extended silence, domain between life and death, funeral rituals, journey to the

city, madness of one of the brothers, and revelation of the past relationship of the

mother and the village priest, evoke allusions to spiritual themes and atmosphere

of nÇ.

As I Lay Dying - - c=est un mythe, célébrant le mystère de l=homme vivant et

mourant; c=est la merveilleuse histoire, assez redoutable, de son difficile avènement

parmi la confuse Création - bref, de l=Art complet, mais résolument situé dans une

perspective sacrée.546

Thus it can not be a coincidence, that André Frank wrote that the performance of

Autour d=une mère evoked his desire to reread Claudel=s L=Oiseau noir dans le

soleil levant:

J=ai voulu relire, après la représentation, ce livre admirable où Paul Claudel donne

ses impressions et ces notes sur le Japon. Deux chapitres montèrent les Anô@

japonais, tels qu=ils demeurent après les siècles d=études des attitudes et des gestes.

On y devine le drame qui se livre, sur d=étroits tréteaux, entre les deux

personnages, l=un expression des forces surhumaines, l=autre de la faiblesse de

l=homme. - - Il est presque incroyable que, par intuition, Jean-Louis Barrault ait

retrouvé les lois d=un art séculaire. 547

Frank also writes that it seems that Barrault, indeed, had not seen nor read about

nÇ, even if his study of movements, the groupings, and the lighting were brought

not have been possible in the old pantomime, in which the character would not have grown pregnant, but that lovemaking would have been followed by the state of being pregnant (Felner 1986, 92).

546 Frank - Astre 1954, 59.

547 Frank 1954, 45. The text was originally published in L=Intransigeant in June 1935.

172

close to sublime.548

One of the scenes which reminds of nÇ, is the dialogue between the dead mother

and the village priest. Dramaturgically interesting is, that Barrault created this

remorseful dialogue from monologues of the mother and the village priest, the

father of Jewel549. In the novel, the mother has only one monologue which is

followed by the monologue of the priest550. Also extremely interesting is, that the

mother started speaking only after her death. She speaks beyond the grave, like

ghosts haunting in the nÇ plays.

After a last minute turn of the events, Barrault ended up playing also the part of

the mother, and solved the problem by making the mother into a sort of a totem

with an impersonal mask made of cheesecloth, with steel buttons as eyes, and

with an enormous black wig coming down to her tighs. When the character was

needed on the stage, Barrault put this outfit on. This is another strong evocation

of a nÇ character, an unsusceptible old woman suddenly transformed into a

demoness.

It must be admitted that there is no direct proof of nÇ influences. Rather, when it

comes, for example, to the character of the mother, Barrault=s own reminiscences

evoke more Mexican than Japanese themes551. The Mexican composer Tata

Nacho composed the choral songs for the performance and might have had some

influence here, especially since he was well-acquainted with Mexican folklore552.

Yet, Barrault also writes that he was under the influence of esoterism of the

548 Frank 1954, 46.

549 Frank - Astre 1954, 60-61. This was the ninth scene of the total of twenty two.

550 Faulkner 1930/1964, 161-171. Barrault dramatised two monologues for the mother (Barrault 1949, 49)

551 Barrault 1949, 47.

552 Barrault 1949, 42

173

East553 during the time.

This Eastern esoterism filtered to Barrault predominantly through Antonin

Artaud, whom he got to know during that time. Artaud was even more open to

influences from non-European cultures than Barrault. Artaud=s Eastern esoteric

influences were gathered from a wide range of works, among them Athe Egyptian

Book of the Dead, The Upanishads, The Bhagavad-Gita, Tantric Yoga, the

Kabbalah and Chinese Acupuncture@554. On non-literal level, the Balinese actor-

dancers, whom Artaud saw at the Colonial Exhibition in Paris in July 1931, were

a ground-breaking exprerience and an affirmation for his previously literature-

based search for a remedy for the ailments of Western theatre.

The Balinese in one performance revealed what he had been dimly seeking in the

Japanese Noh drama, in the Eastern and Medieval mystics, in his work with the

Théâtre Alfred Jarry.555

1.1. Eastern Esotericism via Antonin Artaud

After 1931, Artaud=s interest in Oriental theatre became an intense preoccupation

paralleling Aa concern with the ideogram and the pictogram as opposed to the

devitalized word-symbols of the post-Egyptian occident@556.

The scholars have debated how well Artaud actually understood, or wanted to

understand, Balinese performance. Patricia A. Clancy considers, that even if

553 Barrault 1974, 64.

554 Rose 1986, 3. Certainly, Artaud was also deeply interested in the Mexican culture: he left for his journey to Mexico in January 1936.

555 Clancy 1985, 397.

556 Sellin 1968, 18.

174

Artaud made mistakes in interpretation, his response and analysis were

remarkably close to the spirit and origin of the Balinese theatre.557 It seems that

of the pieces that he saw, he was most inspired by the one named Arjuna Vivaha,

which was performed in masculine baris style, and which combined Aadventure,

love-story and clowning, performed in dance-pantomime with incidental dialogue

and singing, accompagnied by a gamelan of flutes and percussion@558 Against this

background, it is not surprising that Mark V. Rose sees parallels in Artaud=s

writings to another masculine dance style kathakali. Artaud never mentions

Indian kathakali in his writings, but Rose is convinced that its influences can be

traced especially in breathing patterns, movement rhythms, facial expressions,

and even in costumes.559

However deep Artaud=s enthusiasm for the Balinese performance was, scholars

have also pointed out that Artaud=s proposed repertory for Theatre of Cruelty is

conspiciously devoid of productions which could be derived from legends and

myths of the pre-literate cultures he admired. His selection is drawn largely from

ancient, Renaissance or nineteenth century Western sources, on which ritual

gestures and primitive influences should be applied560. Artaud never even sought

to bring Oriental mystique intact on Western stage.561

Considering Artaud=s voracious reading habits and the fair amount of literature

that was available on traditional Japanese theatre562, it is interesting that there are

557 Clancy 1985, 399.

558 Clancy 1985, 403. The female dancers (the legong dance style) does not seem to have impressed Artaud hardly at all (ibid. 404), nor does he write much about the masks, monsters, demons and the dragon, i.e. the most spectacular elements of the show (ibid. 405).

559 Rose 1986, 31-32.

560 Rose 1986, 34.

561 Sellin 1968, 53.

562 By comparison, the amount of literature on the Balinese theatre was very limited

175

hardly any references to Japanese sources in Le Théâtre et son double, a

collection of his essays written during the 1930s and published in 1938563. The

only reference is a note on Japanese stage assistants, a convention about which

he had learned at Dullin=s l=Atelier.564

It could be said that Artaud was Barrault=s second - or third, if Dullin is included

- master. Barrault actually writes that he worked on mime first with Decroux,

then with Artaud, and only after that on his own565. However, Barrault does not

want to separate the influences that he got from Decroux, Dullin, and Artaud, but

sees, that they all worked in him simultaneously.566 The previously presented

article, in which Barrault presents Awhat he might have said about mime during

that time@ is already clearly influenced by Artaud=s theories, especially in the

importance laid on breathing and the tertiary pattern. The grammar of gesture

subject verb object

attitude movement indication

fits beautifully into the tertiary pattern, which traces back to cabbalistic division

into three, the cabbalistic ternary. In his memoirs, Barrault writes how intrigued

and magnetised he was by this approach, and he has also clearly stated that it was

Artaud who introduced the theory to him567. The key concepts of Artaud=s

cabbalistic theory are:

during the 1930s (Clancy 1985, 399).

563 Artaud 1938/1964.

564 Rose 1986, 12, 47.

565 Barrault 1979. Interview by William Weiss.

566 Barrault 1974, 83.

567 Barrault 1987, 69. Interview by Jean Perret.

176

Pull push retention

receive give retain

feminine masculine neuter

In each individual, these elements are intertwined, and they can be combined into

different formations. The concepts of yin and yang, of which also Zeami writes

profoundly in his treatises568, appealed to Artaud, as they did to Barrault.

Artaud=s Theatre of Cruelty accommodated Eastern elements and emphasised the

non-verbal. However, when it comes to total elimination of speech from the

theatre, Artaud=s vision is not nearly as radical as Decroux=s early vision for

renovation of the actor=s art. Artaud did not banish text from the theatre, but

wished to give it a new status in relation to gestures. Scholars have seen a

connection to Eastern theatre in this:

Artaud - - n=a jamais éliminé le texte dans un spectacle, il a voulu établir une autre

hiérarchie. - - Dans la même ligne que Craig, Appia, Piscator ou Meyerhold, il

donne à la mise en scène une importance primordiale. - - Pour créer ce langage

dans l=espace et en mouvement, il cherche des gestes indépendents du sens des

mots, gestes-signes à l=instar du théâtre oriental.569

Yet in Theatre of Cruelty, movement, mime, dance and gesture can be seen to

dominate the speech element, which was not, however, meant to be interpreted

lexically, but rather as a secondary sonic accompagniment to physical action570.

According to Artaud, the human body has two languages: the language of

breathing and the language of gesture. Breathing is the basis for gestural

568 Zeami 1984, 19 (Fãshikaden).

569 Aslan 1974, 249.

570 Rose 1986, 28.

177

language. All this brings in mind yoga571, even if strong resemblance to the

previously mentioned Japanese martial arts training can also be seen in it.

Artaud=s technique resembles an ancient Taoist curative breathing method that is

somewhat simpler and more direct than that of yoga. To treat an internal pain or

illness, a patient inhales, swallows his breath and sustains it while meditating on an

affected region. - - Artauds notes on Taikyoku (a Japanese version of T=Ai Chi),

Yin and Yang concepts, and acupuncture suggest that he may have been familiar

with the procedure.572

Further resemblance to Japanese martial arts can be found in the division of body

into four centres of energy: head, belly, sex, and nerves, of which one in turn

tends to dominate. It seems possible that this explains the similarities with

Japanese martial arts theories, which were discerned from Barrault=s article on

mime. He, indeed, was under the influence of the Artaudian East during that

time.

For Artaud, Barrault=s Autour d=une mère was a source of great inspiration.

Immediately after the performance, Artaud proceeded to write an article, which

was first published in La Nouvelle Revue Française573 and, later, included in Le

Théâtre et son double574.

In his writings, Artaud expressed his liking of animal movement, and requested

that actors should create animal characters, whose movement could amuse and

astonish the public575. Thus it is not surprising that Barrault's "centaur-horse

571 Rose 1986, 3, 30.

572 Rose 1986, 47.

573 No. 220, July 1, 1935.

574 Artaud 1938/1964, 213-216.

575 Rose 1986, 9.

178

show" impressed him considerably. He starts the article with a reference to it, and

returns to the horse imagery also later, stating that

surtout cette espèce d'homme-cheval qui circule à travers la pièce, comme si

l'esprit même de la Fable était redescendu parmi nous. Seul jusqu'ici le théâtre

Balinais semblait avoir gardé une trace de cet esprit perdu.576

According to Artaud, the movement in the performance was rigorous and the

gestures were stylised and mathematical. General atmosphere was magical and

religious, even if Barrault, in his opinion, had used profane and descriptive means

in creating it. Artaud also has some criticism on the nature of gestures. There are

no symbols in this play, it does not extend beyond itself because it is descriptive,

he writes. The production does not share the deep drama, mystery deeper than

souls, the conflict between souls to where gesture is only a road.577 Ritualistic

movements and puppet-like gestures which can be compared to the Über-

marionette, did exist in Barrault=s production, but they were still imperfect578.

1.2. Les Cenci

In his article, Artaud also gives Barrault credit for disarming an initially hostile

audience579 - Barrault's own account on Athe taming of the audience@ is similar580.

Artaud had a personal reason for sensitivity to hostile audiences: his Les Cenci

576 Artaud 1938/1964, 215.

577 Artaud 1964, 216.

578 Rose 1986, 8-9, 22.

579 Artaud 1964, 213.

580 Barrault 1972, 89.

179

had been performed only a few weeks before581 at the Théâtre des Folies-

Wagram. The audience=s and the critics= reactions to this incestous and bloody

tragedy had been at its worst confused, indifferent, and outright hostile, although

there was also encouragement and desire to understand his intentions. Artaud's

Les Cenci was a grand-scale spectacle, Barrault's production as minimalistic as

could be. Yet, there are some similarities between these productions. Both of

them were creations of one auteur, who also had a central role in the

performance. Themes of both of these plays deal with family and death, even if

the social contexts could not be further apart, and certainly Barrault did not want

Ato attack the social superstition of the family@582 as Artaud did.

Les Cenci, based on the texts of Shelley and Stendhal, is a tragic story of the

16th century family of count Francesco Cenci, who in his defiance of the

heavenly and wordly authorities rapes his daughter, Beatrice, and eventually gets

himself murdered by assassins hired by her. At the end, Beatrice is sentenced to a

spectacular death in Pope=s torture chambers. In this Atragi-fantasmagorie visuelle

et auditive@,583 Cenci was played by Artaud and Beatrice by lady Iya Abdy, an

amateur actress who Aavec sa pâleur fatale, ses attitudes de sylphide qui évoquent

en même temps Isadora Duncan, Ida Rubinstein et Greta Garbo@ had obvious

stage presence584. As a matter of fact, Artaud preferred amateur actors, since the

Aprofessional actors who had kept themselves >pure= were rare@585. Interestingly,

it seems that Artaud used Barrault, who attended many of the rehearsals of Les

Cenci, to rehearse the actors until he realised that their methods were so opposed

581 The premier was on May 6, and it was followed by seventeen performances.

582 Artaud 1935/1972, 92.

583 Prudhomme, Le Matin 6.5.1935. The more conservative critics referred also to melodrama (Interim, Action Française 17.5.1935; Audiat, Paris-Soir 9.5.1935).

584 Audiat, Paris-Soir 9.5.1935.

585 Anonyme, Le Petit Parisien 14.4. 1935

180

that his design was in danger586.

There certainly was cruelty in Les Cenci, but it seems questionable how well the

theories of theatre and movement and Eastern esoterism that Artaud strongly

propagated, were reflected in this particular production. The play was built on

regular dialogue, even if great part of it remained undecipherable for the audience

because of Iya Abdy=s strong accent and Artaud=s own declamatory shouting and

monotonous staccato articulation. In several scenes, Artaud used text which was

combined with rhythmical movement587 and mimed expression, and it were

actually these scenes that reviewers treated most favourably. In the first act there

is a banquet scene, in which Artaud used @pantomimed gestures@588 for the party

guests. In addition to actors, he used dummies with whom the characters danced

and interacted. According to Artaud, the dummies were there to enable the

characters to say what was disturbing them and what was impossible to express

in ordinary speech589. Many critics refer to the symbolic nature of the

gestures590, some talk about a resemblance to marionettes591, and, indeed, it was

symbolic gesture and gesture=s equality to written word that Artaud attempted to

find592. Roger Blin, Artaud's assistant in the production.593, remembers:

586 Nes Kirby 1972, 103. I have not found more references on this from other sources.

587 Bidou, Le Temps 13.5.1935.

588 Roger Blin preserved the blocking diagrams and production notes for the posterity Notes for this particular scene were first published in Cahiers Renaud-Barrault (n. 51, nov. 1965). The English translation of the same section appeared in The Drama Review (Vol. 16 Nr 2, June 1972).

589 Artaud 1935/1972, 104. The use of the dummies had interested Artaud for some years before Les Cenci. In 1932, he tried to convince Louis Jouvet to use five metres= tall dummies in a production (Thévenin1986, 45.)

590 Barlatier, Comœdia 6.5.1935 Anonyme, Comœdia 13.5.1935.

591 Reboux, Le Petit Parisien 7.5.1935.

592 Artaud, Le Figaro 5.5.1935.

593 Aslan 1987, 14. Also Blin defines his role as an assistant (Blin 1972, 108. Interview by Charles Marowitz).

181

He wanted the actors in the Banquet Scene of Les Cenci to act in a stylized manner.

He wanted each of the princes to resemble an animal. But this was extremely

difficult because none of the actors had any idea about this kind of acting.594

Eventually, Blin ended up on stage himself. He played a banquet guest and one of

the two assassins who, at first, did not dare to kill Cenci. In addition to the

banquet scene, another scene in which mime was used, was the assassination of

Cenci. Especially, the two mute murderers were praised595, as well as the mimic

talents of Iya Abdy596.

If any references to Eastern influences were made by the critics, they were more

reserved than applauding. An anonymous critic refers to

- - - Une maladroite imitation des drames japonais où des sons de battoir et des

coups de tambour, d=abord espacés, puis qui vont se précipitant annoncent les

situations pathétiques.597

Some Eastern symbolism can also be seen in the wheel in which the tortured

Beatrice is tied to at the end of the play598.

A piece of most interesting criticism on Les Cenci is an article by René Daumal.

It, actually, deals with both Artaud=s and Barrault=s productions, and strongly

from the point of view which makes a difference between Oriental and Occidental

594

Blin 1972, 110. Interview by Charles Marowitz.

595 AM.M. Roger Blin et Henry Chauvet, dans la scène muette des assassins, sont parfaitement horrifiques et montrent là bien du talent.@ Armory, Comœdia 8.5.1935.

596 Colette, Le Journal 12.5.1935; Armory, Comœdia 8.5.1935.

597 Anonyme, Comœdia 13.5.1935.

598 Jouve, La Nouvelle Revue Française 1.6.1935.

182

culture and theatre, calling the latter Aun accident particulier dans l=histoire

humaine@599

Pour les Chinois, Hindous, Australiens, Peaux-Rouges, Juifs, pour tous les peuples

sauf les nôtres, le théâtre est action avant d=être spectacle; action sacrée, c=est-à-

dire de connaissance réelle, de prise de contact avec l=instant présent.600

In spite of this praise, Daumal does not wish to admire Oriental actors

uncritically. They can be as degenerated as Occidental actors even if they, unlike

their Western counterparts, have behind them a long tradition.

When it comes to Artaud=s Les Cenci, Daumal has plenty of sympathy for

Artaud=s aspirations, but has to admit that Artaud did not quite achieve his goals.

Mostly this was because of an untrained ensemble:

- - il a tenté, sur la scène, avec des acteurs mal entrainés, des mouvements

d=ensemble qui auraient exigé un long travail et une profonde interconnaissance

organique de toute la troupe. - - il leur était plus difficile de balayer de leurs corps

les toiles d=araignée de la psychologie larvo-littéraire. - - Malheureusement, si leurs

corps mécaniquement se mouvaient et faisaient les gestes, évolutions et gestes

étaient copiés, non pas faits.601

Barrault=s Autour d=une mère was, for this critic, a totally different matter. He

describes Barrault=s >horse show= with great enthusiasm and gives credit also to

the other actors:

Sans aucun accessoire, sans changement de décor - - on voit le fils ainé scier les

planches du cercueil, et on l=entend, tandis que la mère agonise. On voit - - Joël qui

plonge à la recherche du cercueil, les mains dans la vase, les jambes flottant sous

599 Daumal 1935, 194.

600 Daumal 1935, 198.

601 Daumal 1935, 200.

183

quatre mètres d=eau (sans eau, sans machinerie, sans rien); - - J=ai bien regardé

chacun des acteurs: à chacun, J-L. Barrault a su demander exactement ce qu=il

pouvait faire, et cela aussi est extraordinaire.602

Daumal finds it remarkable, that these two performances were played only two

weeks apart and that the auteurs showed mutual respect to each other, in spite of

the strong differences in their approaches. At the end of his review, he returns to

the theme of the Oriental:

Si tous deux offrent des analogies avec les théâtres orientaux, ce n=est pas

imitation: c=est qu=ils cherchent tous deux leurs fondements dans la nature

humaine.603

Daumal does not analyse the Oriental in more detailed way than this. Of Oriental

theatre forms, he mentions only the Chinese, and the common tradition of

combining grotesque with tragic, in which Barrault succeeded. It is, nevertheless,

interesting that Daumal examines these productions both together and with

references to the Oriental.

1.3. La Compagnie des Quinze: Le Viol de Lucrèce

Yet another 1930s theatrical production can be taken up as a point of

comparison for Barrault=s first production, namely Le Viol de Lucrèce by la

Compagnie des Quinze. The play, which André Obey dramatised into a four act

play from a poem by Shakespeare, was premiered a couple of months after Noé,

in March 1931. The text traces back to the Roman historian Titus Livius and his

602 Daumal 1935, 202.

603 Daumal 1935, 203.

184

account on Lucretia, the faithful wife of a Roman soldier, Brutus. Brutus praises

his wife=s virtues and indirectly incites an envious fellow soldier, Tarquinius, to

rape Lucretia. The violent theme is remarkably close to Artaud=s Les Cenci.

Interestingly, the theme of rape occurs in all three productions: Barrault=s Autour

d=une mère also has a rape scene. When seeking an abortion, Dewey Dell, the

daughter of the family, gets raped by a pharmacist=s assistant in Jefferson.

Les Quinze had chosen to present the story along the lines of ancient Roman

pantomime, or à la bunraku, if we envision the actors as puppets: the text was

recited by two narrators while rest of the actors mostly mimed the story604. As

Noé, Le Viol de Lucrèce was received fairly well by critics, although there were

complaints about the actors being reduced to the role of simple mimes605, and

even fear, that replacing action by commentary reflected a desire to see the death

of the theatre606. As in Noé, the mimic skills of the actors were praised607 and,

occasionally, acting was compared to dancing or ballet608. Pictures of the

production show that mime techniques were used to portray actions. For

example, Lucrèce is shown to spin without any props609. According to French

critics, the role of Lucrèce was a personal triumph for Marie-Hélène Dasté610,

and the British critics joined the praises in June 1931, when the play was

presented in London:

604 Suzanne Bing performed the role of the female narrator, Auguste Boverio was the

male narrator. Marie-Hélène Dasté was Lucrèce and Aman Maistre Tarquinius. Brutus was played by Michel Saint-Denis.

605 Bastia, Comœdia 16.3.1931; Antoine, Information 17.3.1931.

606 Crémieux, 21.3.1931.

607 Duliani, Paris Nouvelles 13.3.1931; Rey, Comœdia 14.3.1931.

608 Duliani, Paris Nouvelles 13.3.1931; Anonyme, Le Théâtre avril 1931.

609 Anonyme, Le Théâtre avril 1931. This article contains several pictures of the production.

610 Duliani, Paris Nouvelles 13.3.1931; Rostand, Soir 16.3.1931.

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Mlle Dasté=s Lucrèce is infinitely appealing. The little scene of her sewing with her

maids - of course with imaginary thread - is magical. Her death scene - she stabs

herself behind a veil and just drops at her husband=s feet - reminds one of the

deftness of Sada Yacco, the Japanese actress, in exactly the same predicament. 611

The reference to Sada Yacco is naturally fascinating. Especially since Marie-

Hélène Dasté would later, in 1947, gain acclaim in a nÇ play Ce que murmure la

Sumida (Sumida gawa).612 Nevertheless, it must be admitted that in case of Le

Viol de Lucrèce, like in the case of Autour d=une mère, Les Cenci, and Noé,

direct allusions to Japanese influences are sparse, almost accidental.

On basis of the reports on the four 1930s French theatrical productions, the

Compagnie des Quinze=s Noé and Le Viol de Lucrèce, Antonin Artaud=s Les

Cenci, which all searched for new theatrical expression which would be based

strongly on the non-verbal and physical acting, Barrault=s Autour d=une mère was

definitely strongest in its mime content, even if Noé and Lucrèce contained a

considerable amount of mime as well. In a way, Barrault=s work can be seen to

have taken the Copeau-derived tradition to a new level. It combined two

traditions which originated from the Vieux-Colombier: Decroux=s pure mime and

les Quinze=s theatre, in which mime was an essential element. Also, it should be

pointed out that when preparing Autour d=une mère, Barrault was in close

contact with Marie-Hélène and Jean Dasté who had been very central in la

Compagnie des Quinze. As far as Artaud is concerned, it can only be speculated

611 S.R.L., Morning Post 18.6.1931. The same reviewer also refers to the play as a

Ablend of mime-ballet and drama@,very much along the same lines as the French critics.

612 Jean Dorcy sees this play as a culmination of Jean and Marie-Hélène Dasté=s work and considers it, not so much a nÇ play, even if the Dastés were familiar with the style and the tradition, but as a first and important example of vocal mime. Also, in Sumida Afor the first time, the actor - by means of various highly stylized and rhythmic gaits - carried out a kind of transposition comparable to that of the dancer@ (Dorcy 1961, 20). Suzanne Bing was instrumental in preparing this production, as she had been in Kantan and would yet be in another nÇ production of the Dastés, Kakegiyo, in 1951.

186

what the result would have been, if Barrault=s skills as a performer and director

and Artaud=s vision could have been combined in a single production.

Les Quinze had already broken up in the beginning of 1935. Artaud=s mental

health deteriorated in the next two years after Les Cenci, which remained his last

theatrical production. Barrault, however, proceeded to work on two other

productions during the decade. And it seems that the search for inspiration from

the ancient Rome continued. It might be said that Numance (1937) actually

combined Artaudian vision with Decroux=s and Barrault=s technique of modern

mime.

2. Numance - Barrault=s Theatre of Cruelty

Spanish civil war and Cervantes= Numance (La Numancia) provided elements for

Barrault's next production in 1937.

Sur le plan de la société, j'apportais ma contribution aux républicains espagnols,

l'individu êtait respecté, la liberté glorifiée. Sur le plan de la métaphysique du

théâtre, je pénétrais dans le fantastique, la mort, le sang, la famine, la fureur, la

rage. Chant, mime, danse, réalité, surréalité.613

At this time, he was involved with a loose circle of surrealist and marxist artists,

le Grenier des Grands-Augustins. Barrault=s attraction to Eastern learnings was

combined to political alertness. The mime was not forgotten either: in le Grenier

he did occasional mime improvisations to poems and to modern music.614

Numance was Aa romantic retelling of the conquest of Numantia by the Romans,

613 Barrault 1972, 113.

614 Barrault 1974, 79. The Eastern sources Barrault mentions in this context were Bhagavad-Gita, Tantric Yoga, Hatha Yoga, the Upanishads and Milarepa. Some of these are the same sources that were seen to have inspired Artaud.

187

who had so starved the citizens during a fifteen month siege, that upon taking

possession of the city, they found only one child alive. The others killed each

other off to avoid suffering, and the last surviving child chose to commit suicide,

marking the Roman conquest in futile tragedy.@615

It seems possible that Artaud's theories of Theatre of Cruelty influenced Barrault:

the production did not close eyes from the atrocities and absurd violence of war.

It was obviously important for Barrault that this play had certain classical

element, which, nevertheless, had some distance to the French classical canon.616

It is also easy to hear Artaudian overtones in Barrault=s definition of theatre as >a

bath for the psyche= and, even more interestingly, as >a bath for forgetting= (bain

d=oubli). The latter expression Barrault derives from what he believes to be a

Japanese term for actor, >un verseur d=oubli=.617

According to Felner, contemporary critics still had difficulties accepting the

extensive use of corporeal expression of Numance.618 Of the structure of the

play, a critic writes that it is "a series of disjointed incidents linked together by

the almost oracular discourses of allegorical figures."619 Felner herself uses such

terms as "a series of poetic episodes" and "visual tableaux"620. The allegorical

characters, War, Hunger, and such, were masked, giving one critic a reason to

615 Felner 1986, 95.

616 Barrault 1949, 74.

617 Barrault 1949, 79. There is a twelve years difference between these ponderings and the performance of Numance and thus it cannot be directly assumed that Barrault was thinking all this during that time even if he writes about them in context of Numance. The common Japanese terms for actor are haiyã (>outcast= combined with >excellence=) or danyã (>man= combined with >excellence= or yakusha (performer of a role) which have nothing to do with forgetting.

618 Felner 1986, 97.

619 Carr, N.Y.Times 13.6.1937.

620 Felner 1986, 95.

188

describe the production as "a masked ballet"621. The allegorical character of

Death reminds one of a Roman soldier, but also some Mexican god with its

prominent head piece and high boots and the figure of a scorpio on the chest.622

There are actually strong resemblances to the characters of The Green Table of

Kurt Jooss.

Barrault used a fair amount of music and sound elements, even loudspeakers.

Again, this reminds one of Artaud who laid great emphasis on mechanical sound.

Like in Les Cenci, mime was a way to express extreme violence. In Numance,

this meant cannibalism and mass massacre which would have been impossible to

stage with naturalistic means. Barrault had clearly more stage technique at his

disposal than in his first production. Not surprisingly, he calls this his first real

mise en scène.623 Especially, the collaboration between Barrault and his stage,

costume and mask designer André Masson worked perfectly. It was actually

Masson who had suggested the staging of Numance to Barrault.

When discussing this production, Felner raises an interesting point, which is

obviously prompted by the political nature of the play:

Although Barrault was a confrère of Brecht and Piscator, he relied less on

mechanical devices and much more than they on muscular plasticity, on the new

mime as an element of the production.624

Felner continues with a reference to Meyerhold625. The reference to Barrault=s

621 Altman, Le Peuple 4.5.1937.The description brings into mind the war scenes and

allegorical characters of Jooss= The Green Table.

622 Picture (no page number) in Cahiers de la Compagnie Renaud - Barrault 1954.

623 Barrault 1949, 74.

624 Felner 1986, 97.

625 Meyerhold was also interested in nÇ, and also used Japanese teachers in his theatre (Fischer-Lichte 1990, 13).

189

political nature might be slightly too far-fetched. In his case, the political element

was more intuitive than in case of Brecht, Piscator or Meyerhold. Actually,

aversion from mechanical devices in favour of corporeal expression brings into

mind theories of the Japanese director Suzuki Tadashi, particularly his emphasis

on human energy, as opposed to energy created by mechanical means, expended

on the stage.626 Suzuki, of course, considers nÇ as a perfect example of theatre

which uses human energy. And, indeed, Numance resembles Suzuki's production

of The Trojan Women.627 The common elements are a rigorously trained corps of

actors, the themes of inhumanity and futility of war, Greco-Roman material, and

the cutting use of music.

Like in Autour d=une mère, Barrault played several roles himself, mainly because

he did not have anybody else who could have played them.628Actors in this

production were partly same as in Autour d=une mère. Roger Blin was one of the

new members in the cast. Blin and Barrault had met already in 1932, but Blin did

not appear in Barrault=s first production - most likely because he was heavily

involved with Artaud's Les Cenci in May 1935. Blin was also involved in political

theatre and must have felt ideologically at home with the message of Numance.

In this production, he played a dead solder who revived slowly, almost

imperceptibly, in order to prophesy. According to Odette Aslan, Blin had a

natural gift for mime and was subsequently trained in mime by Barrault.629

Barrault also employed a group of six gymnasts to play the Roman soldiers.

Movements of these soldiers were executed as some sort of collective movement,

which caused the group look bigger.

626 Suzuki 1987, 29-30.

627 It is actually intriguing that Suzuki=s first visit to France, in 1972, took place after an invitation by Barrault, and that it was Barrault who inspired Suzuki to set up his own company in Toga (Rimer 1986, viii). An hourglass reversed?

628 Barrault 1949, 75.

629 Aslan 1987, 14, 17.

190

J'avais donné aux soldats romains une gesticulation non pas individuelle, mais tirée

de la gesticulation globale d'une troupe en marche, si bien qu'à six, les romains

donnaient l'impression d'une troupe entière.630

Particularly pleased Barrault was with those movement experiments which went

beyond the objective mime:

Rien ne me satisfait plus que ces trouvailles qui n=ont plus aucune ressemblance

directe avec l=objet; qui deviennent de objets isolés, vivant par eux-mêmes et qui

expriment plus réellement l=objet que l=objet lui-même.631

Numance was a success. It was performed for two weeks, a total of fifteen times,

for a full house at the Théâtre Antoine, and it attracted such eminent spectators

as Paul Claudel, who saw the play several times and also invited his friends to the

performances. With help of the composer Darius Milhaud, also a brief encounter

between Claudel and Barrault took place. Before that, Claudel was practically

unknown to Barrault, athough he was probably aware of Artaud=s iconoclastic

insults on Claudel=s expense.632

Claudel did not necessarily share the political values of Barrault and his copains,

but it is obvious, that he saw in Numance an example of total theatre which went

beyond other contemporary experiments and even his own works. At their first

meeting, Claudel and Barrault spoke about the value of gesture, resources of the

body and the art of breathing, as well as matters pertaining to diction. Barrault

writes about this first encounter with Claudel as follows:

630 Barrault 1949, 82.

631 Barrault 1949, 82.

632 Barrault 1974, 96. It also seems that after Autour d=une mère, there had been an attempt by Milhaud to introduce Barrault to Claudel.

191

A propos de Numance, nous nous recontrâmes sur la vertu du geste, sur les

resources du corps, sur la plastique du verbe, sur l'importance des consonnes, sur

la méfiance des voyelles qu'on étire toujours trop, sur la prosodie du langage parlé,

sur les longues et les brèves, sur l'iambe et anapeste, sur l'art de la respiration. Il

me parla du théâtre japonais, m'encouragea...633

So, Claudel did speak to him, among other things, about Japanese theatre.

However, Barrault does not indicate any clear influence of these discussions in

his later writings. On the contrary, on his travel report of the trip to Japan in

1960, he gives Dullin the credit of arousing his interest in Japanese theatre.634

During their first encounter, Claudel wished that they had met forty years

earlier.635 However, it turned out that the encounter was not too late. In the

1940s, it led to the famous stagings of Claudel=s plays by Barrault, but before

that Barrault realised yet another independent production, La Faim (Hunger), in

1939.

3. La Faim - Approaching Paul Claudel

Jean Dorcy sees La Faim as the fulfilment of both Decroux's and Barrault's

experimentation. Naturally, Decroux did not have anything to do with the actual

production. Barrault writes, however, that he liked it, whereas Autour d=une

mère and Numance had not pleased him at all.636 Dorcy writes:

633 Barrault 1972, 122.

634 Barrault 1961a, 69-70.

635 Barrault 1974, 97.

636 Barrault 1949, 92.

192

This play is his third outstanding work - -. In the drama of La Faim, primacy is

given to the gestures. - - More important still, the idiom, this time, is truly that of

Mime. - -

In that period of the history of the Mime, it is difficult to say exactly where Étienne

Decroux ends, and where Jean-Louis Barrault begins.637

La Faim is the last of Barrault's 1930s mime productions or, according to

Leabhart, the last of his plays which did not primarily exist as a text638. It is,

again, based on a novel, this time on Knut Hamsun's novel of the same title.639

Felner writes that the mise en scène enables the audience to see life through the

eyes of the starving young man, in a series of subjective tableaux, and refers to

an expressionistic element of the piece.640 Barrault himself writes about the

theme:

La Faim traitait un sujet qui devait sans doute trouver en moi des correspondances

profondes puisqu'on le retrouve dans le Procès de Kafka: la solitude de l'homme

dans la société. Et aussi un autre problème qui me bouleverse toujours: le

problème du double. - - Un seul homme et son double, se débattant au milieu d'une

collectivité cruellement organisée.641

Hallucinations and nightmares of the hungry protagonist, Tangen, play a central

part in this Ahallucinante symphonie dramatique@642. An important element is the

637 Dorcy 1961, 54-55.

638 Leabhart 1989,70.

639 For some reason, Felner gives the authorship to Jules Laforgue (Felner 1986, 98),

perhaps mixing this production with another production of the same season, Laforgue=s Hamlet which was directed by Georges Granval and also performed at l=Atelier.

640 Felner 1986, 99.

641 Barrault 1949, 90.

642 Mérè, Excelsior 21.4.1939.

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starving writer=s interaction with his double who alternately understands and

reproaches him. Tangen was played by Barrault, the double with whom he

interacted in his hallucinations, by Roger Blin. The theme of the double seems to

derive directly from Artaud, but also Claudel had used it in La Femme et son

ombre.

The production was by no means pure mimodrama, even if many critics refer to

pantomime and ballet643. The playtext644 contains dialogue and monologues by

Tangen. Barrault also used a chorus consisting of seventeen members, which

commented on the stage action. Sounds and music had a crucial role in the

production. The music was composed by Marcel Delannoy, who used fragments

of songs, jazz tunes, tango melodies - and, also, utilised Martenot, electronic

organ invented by Maurice Martenot in 1928. Artaud had also used this

instrument in Les Cenci. The sound of a beating heart accompagnied the

events.645

This piece of total theatre - according to Barrault, his first one - was again a

challenge for the involved actors, a total of 25 this time. The skills which were

required

posait le problème d'une formation nouvelle d'acteurs entraînés à cette technique-

là.

Or cette technique-là, aucune école ne l'enseigne et aucun acteur de notre pays n'y

est véritablement entraîné. Le probleme du théâtre total pose donc tout simplement

le problème de l'enseignement et de la rééducation de l'acteur occidental.646

643 Audiat, Paris-Soir 21.4.1939; Reboux, Petit Parisien 19.4.1939; Lièvre, Marianne

20.4.1939.

644 Barrault 1939. The entire script was published in La Nouvelle Saison in June 1939.

645 Barrault 1939.

646 Barrault 1949, 93-94.

194

This criticism of Occidental actor - which Barrault repeats twice in this context -

echoes Artaud's ideas, and it is possible, that also Claudel had some influence in

it. Certainly, some of the actors were more skilled in physical expression than

others, and Barrault would use their skills to enrich the production. For example,

Aslan writes that while Barrault was preoccupied with the problem of the double,

Blin recited a kind of nightmare poem in which he used his mime skills and

invented language.647 According to Barrault, corporeal means of expression

proved most useful for the dramatic structure of the play, changing the locations

and establishing the atmosphere:

J'avais appliqué à l'action dramatique toute une méthode de jeux plastiques qui

élargissaient considérablement les possibilités de changement de lieu, l'installation

rapide d'une atmosphère, des raccourcis frappants. Mais ce matériel plastique je le

considérais comme un moyen, comme une manière plus libre et plus éntendue de

locomotion dramatique.648

According to Barrault, the audience had difficulties to accept the plastical means

of expression.649 Felner writes about the mixed reception that the production got

from contemporary critics. Surely, there was appreciation and acceptance of this

new kind of a theatre. For example, Gustave de Fréjaville considers La Faim:

un spectacle ingénieux qui tient plutôt du ballet ou de la pantomime que de l=art

dramatique traditionnel. Mais des images hallucinantes restent dans la mémoire.

Les ensembles sont réglés avec beaucoup d=art et les mouvements de la figuration

sont d=une discipline et d=une précision parfaite.650

But again, there were critics who thought that Barrault should put his talent

647 Aslan 1987, 17.

648 Barrault 1949, 93.

649 Barrault 1949, 93.

650 de Fréjaville, Débat 21.4.1939.

195

rather into serving a text, written for theatre by a real author, than into this kind

of mixture of literature and ballet.651

There were some elements that the audience particularly enjoyed, such as a

mimed scene in which Tangen, the protagonist, climbs up the stairs. >Climbing

the stairs= was actually one of the techniques that Decroux and Barrault had

developed in 1931-33.652 At this point, Barrault considered the acceptance of this

kind of an isolated element as accepting a trick, and he was not overwhelmingly

enthusiastic about its popularity.653 From the point of view of mime, however,

this scene is interesting:

Tanguen climbs the six flights to his garret room in a sequence of mimed ascent.

The slides projected as a backdrop show different perspectives of the stairway,

heightening the illusion of the climb. Here Barrault has combined the Decroux

technique (simulation of walking up stairs) with an element of Piscatorian stage

technology.654

In Aslan's book on Roger Blin, there is a picture which shows Blin in this

production at the Théâtre de l'Atelier.655 He is a slender figure, not unlike

Barrault, standing on steps which, obviously, are located 'outdoors'. There are

three lamp posts, behind them some sort of an inner stage and three figures, at

least two of them in costume, who seem to be examining it. This picture does in

no way indicate that there would have been excessive amount of scenic

decoration in the production. On the contrary, the set seems relatively bare. Yet

651 Brisson, Le Figaro 23.4.1939.

652 Leabhart 1989, 62.

653 Barrault 1949, 93.

654 Felner 1986, 99. Barrault himself was surprised about the critics= references to Piscator since he had never seen a performance by Piscator or any other forms of German theatre (Barrault 1949, 91).

655 Aslan 1987, 16.

196

it seems, that Barrault was criticised for his use of scenic elements. His answer to

the criticism was that the more trained and skilled the actors are in playing the

character and simultaneously representing the situation, the easier it is to limit the

scenic elements into bare essentials. It all depends on the skills of the actors who,

to Barrault=s opinion, obviously were not impeccable in this case. There is no

reason to empty the stage, if one cannot offer anything for replacement, he

writes.656

The closest elements to traditional Japanese theatre, especially nÇ, that can be

found in La Faim are the use of chorus with its poetic recitals and comments,

and the dreamlike atmosphere. Also the use of music and sound as an integral

and interactive part of the play, bears some resemblance to the use of music in

nÇ: the sound of beating heart brings into mind the drums of nÇ and the

mechanical sound of Martenot, the shrill sound of the nÇ flute. The paired

characters of Tangen and his double can be seen as shite and waki of nÇ, even if

their roles do not exactly fit the pattern. The double, rather than Tangen, is the

shite. However, like in nÇ Athe drama proper does not develop between the

leading actor, the shite, and the waki in a dream play, but through the revelation

of the leading actor=s inner conflicts@657. Like shite, Tangen=s double was also

masked - only at the end, while fighting physically with Tangen, he loses the

mask and his power over Tangen658. In this respect, the double reminds of those

nÇ characters, which reveal themselves as demons at the culmination point of a

play.

La Faim was performed more than fifty times659 at l=Atelier. Clearly, Barrault had

656 Barrault 1949, 94.

657 Sekine 1985, 103.

658 Barrault 1939, 359.

659 Barrault 1949, 91. In Barrault=s later texts, the number of performances has increased to more than seventy (Barrault 1974, 99).

197

established himself as a credible Aauteur des mises en scène@. It was at this time

that Claudel sent Barrault his first letter and encouragements.660 In his letter,

Claudel wrote:

Vous êtes un acteur étonnant, celui que j=ai toujours désiré! Qui comprend que l=on

doit jouer non seulement avec la langue et les yeux, mais avec tout le corps, se

servir des resources infiniés d=expression que fournit le corps humain.661

Eventually, it turned out that Barrault was not only the actor that Claudel had

been looking forward to, but also a perfect director for Claudel=s drama:

Barrault=s acclaimed productions of Claudel=s plays at the Comédie-Française

commenced with Le Soulier de satin in 1942.

It seems clear that, in the 1930s, Barrault proceeded through four 'masters', four

major influences: Dullin, Decroux, Artaud and Claudel, who helped him to

formulate his views towards total theatre. Of these four, Artaud and Claudel

expressed explicitly their fascination with Oriental theatre, Dullin=s comments, as

seen, were enthousiastic but sparse and Decroux=s most fragmentary. In Claudel=s

case, Oriental theatre was first of all traditional Japanese theatre, especially nÇ, of

which he also had some first hand experience. Both Numance and La Faim

appealed strongly to Claudel, and it can be assumed that some of Claudel=s

knowledge passed on to Barrault - even if Barrault admits that his knowledge of

nÇ remained "livresque ou imaginaire" for a long time.

Nous croyions que le Nô était un théâtre rituel religieux; que les acteurs étaient

masqués; que le mouvement était très lent; que les conventions n'étaient

perceptibles que pour les initiés. Nous étions subjugués par le côté ésotérique de

cet art. Nous envions la haute poésie de ce genre de théâtre, la richesse des

costumes, la préciosité des accessoires, la religiosité enfin qui se dégageait de cette

660 Barrault 1949, 92.

661 Claudel 1974, 78. The letter was written on 25.4.1939.

198

vocation.662

It is interesting how close this description sounds to Claudel's main points on nÇ,

which were discussed earlier.

It is evident that, like Claudel, Barrault sensed the possibility of seeking from nÇ

a contrast to the superficiality of Western theatre. However, his first experience

of a nÇ play at Théâtre des nations festival in Paris in 1957, was a mixture of

confusion and amusement:

C=est donc par hasard que j=avais vu un Nô, il y a trois ou quatre ans. A mon grand

étonnement, je n=avais pas été pris. Le dispositif de la scène m=avait produit moins

d=effet que celle des acteurs de l=opéra chinois. J=avais admiré la présence et le

comportement des servants. Mais j=avais ri à la façon extravagante d=utiliser la

parole et de se placer la voix pour le chant. J=avais même fini par rire

nerveusement, tellement ma sensibilité refusait d=absorber ces cris gutturaux,

comme quelqu=un ferait des efforts pour se faire vomir.663

Fortunately, only a few years later, in Japan, he had a totally different experience.

He saw a nÇ play and a kyÇgen piece performed by actors of Kanze school, and

was thoroughly impressed:

- - je n'avais rien vu de si beau, de si interne, de si magique. Il me semblait avoir

vécu physiquement à l'intérieur d'une âme.664

He also associates nÇ with the ancient Greek theatre665, like Claudel and many

662 Barrault 1961a, 70.

663 Barrault 1961a, 71.

664 Barrault 1961a, 87. He had also read René Sieffert=s book before his trip and was more familiar with the traditions.

665 Barrault 1961a, 76.

199

others before him. In his travel report, Barrault refers to Claudel twice,

mentioning Claudel=s interest in bunraku666 and the Japanese influences in

Claudel=s play Christophe Colomb, which Barrault=s group performed in Japan:

Pour Christophe Colomb de Claudel, il y a eu non seulement succès, mais

étonnement. Claudel a été très influencé par le théâtre japonais. Dans cette œuvre

cela se sent: mélange de chant, de danse, de pantomime.667

Barrault seems to have been impressed by all the performances that he saw in

Japan, seeing them as examples of complete art which combine dance, song and

mime into a whole668. It is interesting that the division into masculin, feminin and

neutre, which he got from Artaud, prevails in his thought: he defines Japanese

spirit as feminine669. Admittedly, there are echoes of Orientalism is this opinion.

It is easy to see progress towards total theatre in Barrault=s work in the 1930s,

This theatre combines other theatrical elements with the corporeal and emotional

skills of the actor. It is also possible to see, that the Oriental, in a broad sense,

filtered to Barrault through his contact with Artaud and, especially, with Claudel,

who was a direct link to traditional Japanese theatre during the period. The

process was most likely intuitive, not conscious search for any specific

information. For example, judging from the lack of references, the available

literature on traditional Japanese theatre seems not have had much influence on

Barrault in the 1930s. As seen, he mentions having read René Sieffert=s book

only before he was going to visit Japan in 1960.

Should we wish to illustrate the process with an hourglass, the influence of

666 Barrault 1961a, 88.

667 Barrault 1961a, 49. In addition to Christophe Colomb, Barrault=s group performed a pantomime piece from Les Enfants du paradis.

668 Barrault 1961a, 75-76.

669 Barrault 1961a, 23-24.

200

Barrault=s four masters with their respective Japanese and other Oriental

influences would be in the upper part of it. Barrault= productions were the filter,

and in the bottom part of the hourglass emerges an interesting new area: the

serious art of subjective mime, which in Carlson=s model is closest to degree 4,

i.e. the foreign and familiar have created a new blend.

Also some >misunderstanding= of foreign cultures was involved, at least in

Artaud=s case, but certainly no blatant exploitation of exotic elements. The pre-

expressive model does not seem particularly fruitful for analysing Barrault=s case,

even if the total theatre that emerged, tempts one to speculate whether Barrault

just happened to discover theatre that holds all essential elements of the

performance. However, as we have seen, there are clear and traceable influences

and a line of development behind Barrault=s work on theatre that clearly gives the

art of the actor - or perhaps in this case: the art of the actor-manager - the most

central status.

4. The Serious Art of Subjective Mime

Decroux and Barrault made a difference between objective and subjective mime

and emphasised that the essence of modern mime was first of all in the field of

subjective mime. The mime that Barrault wanted in La Faim was subjective

mime, i.e. mime which deals with mental states of the soul translated into

corporeal expression670. The subjective mime brings in a religious level and an

interesting notion:

En poursuivant nos recherches dans le mime subjectif, notamment, nous nous

sentions nous rapprocher des acteurs orientaux; nous avions l'impression que nous

670 Barrault 1950a, 16. Felner actually sees La Faim as an example of objective and

subjective mime working simultaneously (Felner 1986, 99).

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retrouvions la plastique de la tragédie grecque.671

Subjective mime was to be serious art, not tricks and amusement. From the very

beginning of his work, Decroux was resolutely against the old-fashioned

pantomime, which was supposed to amuse people. If mime was to be developed

into a real, independent art form, it had to be serious.

First we have something serious. - - An art is first of all serious and adds the comic

aspect later. And this pantomime seemed to me to be systematically comic, even

before one knew what the subject was.672

This statement was made when Decroux was in his eighties and was reminiscing

about pantomime performances of his childhood. However, his repulsion from

amusing the audience, or actually even particularly caring for acceptance of the

audience, stayed throughout his career. In his desire to assault the audience,

Decroux actually fits very well in the modernist movement, for which the mass

audience and consumer art were definite adversaries673. According to Felner,

Decroux moved mime from popular culture to art for the intellectual elite.674

Nevertheless, she also finds that

although Decroux reviled the gratuituous comic effect of the old pantomime, he never

fully explored the relationship between mime and tragedy. He dealt more with the

pure physical level of gesture.675

More aesthetically conscious statements on seriousness can be found from

671 Barrault 1949, 39.

672 Decroux 1974, 28. Interview by Thomas Leabhart.

673 Baxter 1986, 275.

674 Felner 1985, 52. Considering the history of mime, this is a simplification. Le Cercle Funambulesque can be seen having done the same in the 19th century.

675 Felner 1985, 80

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Barrault. He was convinced that mime was an art which could become as noble

and majestic as all arts, and that there could be 'tragic pantomime' which the

Oriental artists know so well676. Most interesting is, that Barrault actually makes

a connection between Oriental mime and modern (Western) mime which, unlike

historical pantomime, can reach up to tragedy677. Leabhart extends this statement

to cover also Decroux= views, and writes that both of them Awished to return to

the sacred source of drama@678. This evokes Pavis= concept of ultracultural

theatre, which involves the mythic quest for the lost purity of the theatre.

In modern mime, the discussion on seriousness brings us back to the definition of

the concepts 'mime' and 'pantomime'. Both Decroux and Barrault use the two

terms to indicate the degree of seriousness of the performer and performance,

even though it must be admitted that there are discrepancies in the use of these

terms in their writings and interviews.

The term favoured by Decroux is 'mime corporel', corporeal mime679. In his

writings and interviews, 'pantomime blanche' or 'pantomime ancienne' refer to

19th century Pierrot pantomime680. For Jean-Louis Barrault, both 'mime' and

'pantomime' are examples of corporeal expression which excludes speech.

According to him, 'pantomime' is dramatic art, which uses gestures as language,

whereas 'mime' is dramatic art which lives in silence, and is by its nature, action,

not language681. Admittedly, Barrault uses terms like 'tragic pantomime' to

correspond with 'pure pantomime' - clearly meaning something else than

676 Felner 1985, 79.

677 Barrault 1953. In this article Barrault indicates that the only connection to the Oriental mime is the noble character and the degree of dignity, not exactly the style.

678 Leabhart 1989, 64.

679 Decroux 1963, 17.

680 Decroux 1963, 87.

681 Barrault 1979, 4. Interview by Willam Weiss.

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historical pantomime with its charming and slightly obsolete gestural language682.

It must be said that Barrault is not very clear and consistent in his definitions683.

One example of the elusiveness of his language is the article entitled 'Tragic

Mime',684 which seems to tie the tragic in mime to man's existentialist struggle

with universe, i.e. the conflict between inner self and outer world. He is

convinced that all this is evident in an individuals countenance - even if the key to

tragic mime has been lost.

These scattered statements clearly reflect a need to see the art of mime from a

new and different angle. It has actually been said that "virtually all modernists

had in common a wish to take things apart and start over, to make things new in

a radical way"685. For some scholars of mime, they also reflect a simplified view

that Amime throughout the centuries has been clearly isolated from the so-called

serious theater of each era@686. However it is clear that, throughout its history,

mime has combined elements of the sacred and the profane. Decroux=s and

Barrault=s desire to define modern mime as serious art is not new in the history of

mime and pantomime, but an integral part of all periods of renovation of this art

form.687 In this case, a more interesting aspect is that the elements related to the

Oriental, and often to traditional Japanese theatre, fulfilled the need for tragic or

serious, and provided evidence that tragic mime was possible also in the West.

682 Barrault 1979, 4-5. Interview by Willam Weiss.

683 In this context in also the interviewer (Weiss) is using the words >mime= and >pantomime= interchangeably, and the translators (Sally & Thomas Leabhart) have followed this practice.

684 Barrault 1961b, 91-100.

685 Crunden 1993, 335-336.

686 Felner 1986, 176.

687 Please see Appendix 1.

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VIII. CONCLUSION

The objective of this study has been to bring a contribution to the history of

modern mime by specifying what exactly were the often-mentioned influences of

Oriental theatre behind the development of this art form in France in the 1930s.

The practical work and writings of Étienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault are

in the focus of this study. The scholarship has not thus far provided answers to

this question. On the contrary, it seems that the statement of Oriental influences

is often made matter-of-factly, without any specifications which forms of Oriental

theatre could be in question, and whether Decroux and Barrault were exposed to

these in the 1930s either on visits to Eastern countries or by seeing performances

in France or, possibly, by gathering information from the available literature.

Parallels with Oriental theatre and modern French mime are sought by analysing

Decroux=s and Barrault=s writings, experimentation and performances in the

1930s. Grasping the >Spectre of the Orient= is important, because often the

statements are repeated and re-cited without questioning the validity of their

origins.

Since Oriental theatre is a wide concept, this study focuses only on the possible

influence of traditional Japanese theatre, nÇgaku, kabuki, and kyÇgen on modern

French mime. In addition to being the most referred to Oriental influence on

modern mime, Japanese traditional theatre - or at least something that was

approximating it - had the most solid visit tradition in France before and during

the 1930s. The theoretical approaches tried out in clarifying the influence are

different methods of theatrical interculturalism, i.e. models that try to trace the

influence flows between different cultures in specific theatre performances. It

should be said that these methods are not yet very sophisticated and that they do

not seem to be quite sufficient for analysing non-contemporary performances,

like the ones dealt with in this study. However, intercultural approaches have

been used as tools to clarify the processes and to give structure to the findings. I

205

have classified the methods or approaches into three basic categories: the pre-

expressive model, the >degreeable= or >infiltration models=, and the

>misunderstanding= models, and chosen the most suitable approaches for the

material in question. Since the goal has been to find possible influences, the

preference has been on the two latter categories. The pre-expressive model is

more static and concentrates rather on locating the innate similarities between

different performance traditions.

The first link to Eastern, if not necessarily Japanese tradition, can be found in the

emphasis on the non-verbal. Mistrust in word has dominated the whole 20th

century. This mistrust has been particularly strong during the polarised times of

totalitarian ideologies, such as the 1930s in Europe. Mime, a theatre form which

subordinates or denies the importance of Sire le Mot, seems to be particularly

suitable medium for such times, and, indeed, there was considerable activity in

the field of mime during the period. A wide variety of performers sprouted up.

Hardly any of them invested in 19th century pantomime tradition with its

commedia dell=arte-based characters and romantic and melodramatic themes.

Many, like Decroux and Barrault, plunged into experimentation along with other

representatives of the modernist movement which influenced all the arts.

However, it was not only the importance of silence in Eastern cultures that

appealed to the renovators of theatre and mime in particular. Modern mime was

physical art, and Oriental theatre forms were considered to be on a far more

advanced level in this respect. Rigorous physical training methods resulting in the

ultimate professionalism are connected with the training principles of Eastern

traditional theatres.

The second link to the Oriental can be found in modernism in general. In its

quest for new ways of artistic expression, modernism often sought inspiration

from past and non-European cultures.

206

Mime has a particularly strong French flavour, and the most visible

representatives of the art during 19th and 20th centuries have, indeed, been

Frenchmen, namely Jean-Gaspard Deburau, Étienne Decroux, Jean-Louis

Barrault, Marcel Marceau, and Jacques Lecoq. The question why France would

become so strong in mime in 19th century and remain such in 20th century, is

interesting. The restrictions imposed on the use of speech during the first half of

19th century are not sufficient explanations. These were fairly short-lived and did

not keep the mime companies, with the exception of Pierrot character, from

adopting spoken dialogue as soon as they were removed. As far as 20th century,

and the 1930s in particular, is concerned, there certainly were no such

restrictions.

One likely reason for the dominance of France in mime is the continuity of the

tradition which is exceptional in the history of mime. 19th century pantomime

carried on to the following century with modifications and renovations. A sign of

the strength of the tradition is the vehemence with which Étienne Decroux

attacked it - and, indeed, the ease by which Marceau later adopted many of its

key elements. While acknowledging the French achievements in mime, we can

also ask whether canonisation tends to omit the other lines than the dominant,

and often male ones. For example, the clear interest in mime in England during

the 1930s or the work of Angna Enters in the United States at approximately

same time, remains forgotten or understated. Another important and

unresearched area is the contribution of Suzanne Bing in the development of

modern French mime and, especially, in bringing the influence of traditional

Japanese theatre into it by playing a crucial role in the production of the nÇ play

Kantan at the Vieux-Colombier school. There is still plenty to be done in

researching and canonising the female tradition in mime. One of the contributions

of this study is in focusing some of the limelight on the other representativies of

mime during the period concerned. Their work is often omitted from the books

on modern mime. The same applies to some of theoretical writings on mime that

I have taken up in this study.

207

In this work, the contemporary representatives of the 1930s mime are presented

very briefly, mainly in order to look whether their work contained any influences

from traditional Japanese theatre as well. In addition to the British mimes and

Enters, I have analysed a dance-theatre performance by Kurt Jooss, The Green

Table. Jooss= art offers also an opportunity to deal briefly with the connections

between modern dance and modern mime. The line between mime and strongly

theatrically oriented dance is very thin, bringing into mind the difficulty of

defining, for example, the kabuki dance. It is also interesting that Decroux, who

was critical of modern dance, made an exception with Jooss, calling him brother

and expressing a wish to write about his work.

It must be said that parallels to and actual evidence of traditional Japanese theatre

having influenced the mimes who were contemporaries of Decroux and Barrault

are very marginal. Enters had some interesting contacts with Japanese performers

but chose to search inspiration from other sources. In case of the British mimes

and Jooss, no significant parallels can be found, at least on basis of the materials

that were used. The results with Decroux and Barrault are definitely more

promising.

During the first years of the 1930s, Étiennne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault

developed the key concepts and techniques of modern or, as it is also called,

corporeal mime. These techniques and, especially, Decroux=s lifelong elaboration

of them, still live in the work of contemporary performers - whether they are

admirers of his ideas or not.

In theory, the influence is possible. Especially, if the focus is on traditional

Japanese theatre forms, nÇgaku, kabuki and bunraku, which all were, at least

through literature, known in France by and during the 1930s. The French had

also had an opportunity to see some examples of Japanese theatre which,

although far from authentic performances of the traditional forms, could bring a

208

flavour and impressions on different, corporeal, performing techniques for the

interested and open-minded. I was not able to find any information that would

have confirmed that Decroux or Barrault saw, for example, the performances of

Nihon-Geki-KyÇkai group in Paris in 1930 but it is likely that they heard about

those from Dullin in whose l=Atelier theatre they both were working at that time.

Dullin had seen the performance and was enthusiastic about it, and it seems that

it was exactly the performing skills of these Japanese actors that he slightly later

compared with Decroux=s and Barrault=s skills in mime.

Another documented and likely influence, on Decroux at least, was the

performance of Kantan at the Vieux-Colombier. It seems likely that he saw it,

even if some statements that were long considered his comments on this

performance most likely refer to another student performance at the school.

There are very few references to any form of Japanese theatre in the articles that

Decroux and Barrault wrote in the 1930s. Actually, there are no texts by Barrault

from this decade and I have used a text in which he reminisces on the 1930s and

his views on mime during the period. A short note on the minimal use of

decoration in Japanese theatre is included in Decroux=s article, which was written

in 1931.

Finding parallels between the texts and theories on modern mime and traditional

Japanese theatre and its aesthetics is easier than finding the actual references. Of

course, the parallels have to be treated with caution. For example, it is possible to

find some similarities between the theories of Zeami and Étienne Decroux - but it

is clearly possible to find plenty of differences as well. When it comes to the

actual mime pieces that Decroux composed and rehearsed with his students in the

1930s, it is easy to see that Japanese, or any other Eastern influence is not

particularly evident in them. They are built around occupational gestures, sport

themes, and the explorations of machinery. These themes would later develop

209

into the four character types that Decroux favoured in his training and teaching:

Man of the Drawing Room, Man of Sports, Man of the Dreams and Marionette.

It is not surprising that when the possible influences are looked at more closely,

the Decroux scholars do not have any other alternative than to state that the

similarities and parallels derive from the pre-expressive level, the area that is

common to all theatre traditions.

Yet, it cannot be denied that in his role of a master teacher, Decroux resembled

an Oriental master. He devoted his life for teaching and perfecting his and his

students= skills in the restricted area of corporeal mime. He himself did not aspire

to perform as much as to educate and do research in this selected area.

Undeniably, his influence on many of his own students has been extremely

profound. This brings in the enhancing effect of the United States in particular.

Decroux taught and performed in New York after World War II and,

subsequently, his school in Paris had a steady flow of U.S. students, of whom

several have continued his legacy not only by performing but also by writing.

Without this 'added value' Decroux might never have obtained his legendary

status as the Afather of modern mime@.

The development of Jean-Louis Barrault in the 1930s is a very different matter.

Surely, he was very strongly under Decroux=s influence during the first years of

the decade, and brought an important contribution to the development of the

techniques of modern mime. His text pertaining to the decade actually evokes the

theories of Japanese martial arts, and I have read them in parallel with a

guidebook by Deshimaru Taisen, a martial arts teacher. It is probable, though,

that the ideas presented in this particular text were not ideas shared with Decroux

in the first two years of the decade. Many elements in them show the influence of

Antonin Artaud with whom Barrault got acquainted during the first half of the

decade.

210

In the mid-1930s, Barrault started building his own career with theatre

productions which were based on the solid corporeal skills of the actor combined

with the other theatrical elements: music, sound, lights - and text. Thus he

actually started approximating the total expression of traditional Japanese theatre

forms. Again, with a look at some of the other contemporary performances that

used mime as a part of a theatrical production, I have examined whether Barrault

went further than his contemporaries. It seems that he did: the amount of mime

in Barrault=s plays was larger than in the other productions and so were the

parallels with traditional Japanese theatre forms. Yet, another 1930s trend

embracing traditional Japanese theatre should not be forgotten, namely the work

of Marie-Hélène and Jean Dasté and, again, Suzanne Bing. This line, naturally,

derives directly from Jacques Copeau and the tradition of l=École du Vieux-

Colombier. The 1930s saw the productions of the Compagnie des Quinze, in

which mime was an integral part. The influence of the Japanese theatre is not

particularly strong in these. Whereas, in the 1940s and 1950s the Dastés and

Bing approached the Japanese themes more directly with their productions of

Sumida and KagekiyÇ.

If we wish to see the influence of traditional Japanese theatre on French mime in

the 1930s, we definitely have to look at the direction of Barrault who, actually

acted as a very interesting >living= hourglass by filtering impressions from

different sources into his work. At first, he was exposed to the ideas of Antonin

Artaud whose eclectic mélange of Eastern esoterism influenced him deeply.

However, when it comes to the influence of traditional Japanese theatre, he was

primarily influenced by Paul Claudel, whose knowledge and interest in traditional

Japanese theatre forms went far beyond the knowledge and interest of an average

Frenchman. Again, it seems that the literature that was available, did not have

much of influence. The information transmitted in conversations and in

correspondence was far more crucial.

211

It is clear that in Barrault Claudel discovered the talent that he would have

needed to achieve his aspirations with his own experiments with the nÇ-style - in

a very broad meaning of the word - in the 1920s and 1930s. It is not a

coincidence that Claudel was much taken by Barrault=s 1930s theatrical

productions, and that, eventually, Barrault would create highly acclaimed mises

en scène for Claudel=s plays. Barrault did manage to combine the sacred and the

profane, the religious and the entertaining, the shamanic and the satyric. Of

course, it was not pure mime but theatre - in which mime played a central role.

If all these examples are looked at as an entity, it can be concluded that in

addition to the possible pre-expressive strata, there was some infiltration and

certainly a fair amount of misunderstanding in the relations between Japanese

traditional theatre forms and modern French mime. This was visible already in the

1930s but got more evident in the following decades when there were more

opportunities for first-hand authentic experiences on traditional Japanese theatre

forms. With this study I wish to have grasped the Spectre of the Orient during

one period of modern French mime, but it is clear that there is still work to be

done in this field, and perhaps with other Spectres as well.

212

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STRIKER, Ardelle (1984). AThe Pantomimes of Champfeury: A Time of Changein the Silent Art@. Theatre History Studies. Vol IV, 1984.*

STRIKER, Ardelle (1988).*

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ZORTMAN, Bruce (1984). Hitler's Theater. Ideological Drama in NaziGermany. El Paso: Firestein Books.

II. Newspaper articles and reviews on the performances:(articles included in the collections of the Bibliotheque de l=Arsénal are referredwith the catalogue number)

AGATE, James. AA masterpiece. Noe. A play by André Obey. Presented by theThéâtre du Vieux-Colombier@. Sunday Times 12.6.1931. (Rondel4ESW9052/André Obey).

ALTMAN, George. "Drame d'un peuple, Numance". Le Peuple 4.5. 1937.

Anonyme. ALe Viol de Lucrèce au Vieux-Colombier@. Le Théâtre. Avril 1931.

225

(Rondel Rt 3732).

Anonyme (without title), Le Petit Parisien. 14.4. 1935.

Anonyme, (without title). Comœdia 13.5.1935. (Rondel 4E SW 2043).

ANTOINE, André, (without title). Information 17.3.1931. (Rondel Rt 3732).

ARMORY, ALes Cenci@. Comœdia 8.5.1935. (Rondel 4E SW 2043).

ARTAUD, Antonin. ALes Cenci@. La Bête Noire No. 2. May 1, 1935 (translatedin TDR Vol. 16 Nr 2, June 1972).

ARTAUD, Antonin. AWhat the Tragedy of Les Cenci Will Be@. Le Figaro5.5.1935 (translated in TDR Vol. 16 Nr 2, June 1972 ).

AUDIAT, Pierre. ALes Cenci@. Paris-Soir 9.5.1935. (Rondel 4E SW 2043).

AUDIAT, Pierre. A Spectacle Jean-Louis Barrault à l=Atelier.@ Paris Soir21.4.1939. (Rt 4127).

BARLATIER, Pierre. AM. Antonin Artaud nous dit pourquoi il vent écrire un>théâtre de la cruauté=@. Comœdia 6.5.1935. (Rondel 4E SW 2043).

BASTIA, Jean. ALes masques de la Mi-Carême au Vieux-Colombier@. Comœdia16.3.1931. (Rondel Rt 3732).

BAUGHAN, E.A. ADrama of Nature. French Players Personify a River.@ NewsChronicle (no date) 1933. (Rondel 4ESW 9051 (2)/André Obey)

BIDOU, Henry. AChronique théâtrale@. Le Temps 13.5.1935. (Rondel 4E SW2043).

BOHM, Jerome D. @Angna Enters Starts Series of Mime Portraits@ N.Y. HeraldTribune 21.12.1937.

BOISSY, Gabriel. ASur >Les Quinze= et l=interprétation de >Noé=@. Comœdia21.1.1931. (Rondel Rt 3732 Vol. 1/Compagnie des Quinze)

BRISSON, Pierre. ALa Faim@. Le Figaro 23.4.1939.

CARR, Philip. "Paris Looks Spain". N.Y.Times 13.6.1937

COLETTE. ”Les Cenci aux Folies-Wagram”. Le Journal 12.5.1935. (Rondel4E SW 2043).

CRÉMIEUX, Benjamin. ”Je suis partout”. 21.3.1931. (Rondel Rt 3732).

226

DARBOIS, A. Nouvel-Age 30.3.1938. (Rondel 4E SW 6651/É. Decroux)

DELARUE, Maurice. ”Le théâtre de quelques mimes”. Paris Soir 13.12.1947.(Ro 11.579/Decroux)

DENNY, Claude. Le Soir 7.5.1930. (Rondel Re 2407 (2)).

DULIANI, M. ”Le Viol de Lucrèce”. Paris Nouvelles 13.3.1931. (Rondel Rt3732).

DE FRÉJAVILLE, Gustave. ”Les répétitions générales”. Débat 21.4.1939. (Rt4127)

INTERIM, ”Les Cenci”. Action Française 17.5.1935 (translated in The DramaReview Vol. 16 Nr 2, June 1972 by Victoria Nes Kirby).

J.G.B. ”A play about the Ark. Acted with Fervour by a French Company. Noe.”The Evening Post 13.6.1931. (Rondel 4E SW9052/André Obey)).

JOUVE, Pierre-Jean. ”Les Cenci by Antonin Artaud”. La Nouvelle RevueFrançaise 1.6.1935 (translated in TDR Vol. 16 Nr 2, June 1972 by Victoria NesKirby).

LARCHIN, Maurice. Paris Presse 27.4.1930. (Rondel Re 2407 (2)).

LAUT. Le Monde Illustrée 10.5.1930. (Rondel Re 2407 (2)).

LEVINSON, André. Candide 22.5.1930. (Rondel Re 2407 (2)).

LIÈVRE, Pierre ”Au théâtre de l’Atelier spectacle Jean-Louis Barrault”.Marianne 20.4.1939. (Rt 4127).

MARCHÈS, Leo. ”Acteurs Japonais”. Liberté 27.3.1910.

MARTIN, John. ”Season is opened by Jooss Ballert”. The New York Times23.9.1941.

MÉRÈ, Charles. ”Les premieres”. Excelsior 21.4.1939. (Rt 4127)

PAZ, Madeleine. Le Populaire 23.3.1938. (Rondel 4E SW 6651/É. Decroux).

PRUDHOMME, Jean. ”Répétition generale au Théâtre Folies-Wagram”. LeMatin 6.5.1935. (Rondel 4E SW 2043).

REBOUX, Paul. ”Les répétitions générales”. Le Petit Parisien 7.5.1935. (Rondel4E SW 2043).

227

REBOUX, Paul ”A l’Atelier ’Hamlet’ – ’La Faim’”. Petit Parisien 19.4.1939.(Rt 4127).

RENEGEARD, Claude. ”Un resurrection au Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier. LaCompagnies des Quinze joue ’Noé’”. Revue Française 25.1.1931. (Rondel Rt3732 Vol. 1/Compagnie des Quinze).

REY, Étienne. ”Le Viol de Lucrèce”. Comœdia 14.3.1931. (Rondel Rt 3732).

ROSTAND, Maurice. ”Le Viol de Lucrèce”. Soir 16.3.1931. (Rondel Rt3732/Compagnie des Quinze).

SAUVAGE, Léo. Le Peuple 4.4.1938. (Rondel 4E SW 6651/É. Decroux).

SORBETS, Gaston. ”Martine au Théâtre des Mathurins”. La Petite Illustration22.7.1922.

S.R.L. ”French Players Triumph. ’Le Viol de Lucrèce’ at the Arts. PerfectPictorial Effects”. Morning Post 18.6.1931. (Rondel 4E SW 9051 (2)/AndréObey).

STROWSKI, Fortunat. Paris-Midi 2.5.1930. (Rondel Re 2407 (2)).

STROWSKI, Fortunat. Paris-Midi 18.3.1938. (Rondel 4E SW 6651/É.Decroux).

TERRY, Walter. ”Angna Enters Dances”. N.Y. Herald Tribune. 17.12.1939

TERRY, Walter. ”Angna Enters Plays Tribute to Isadora Duncan”. N.Y. HeraldTribune. 18.12.1939

TERRY, Walter. ”The Jooss Ballet”. N.Y. Herald Tribune 28.9.1941

YAMATA, Kikou. ”Les acteurs japonais à Paris”. Le Figaro 4.5.1930.

III. Other Publications:

The Mime Review. July 1935, Vol. 1, No. 1. From the collections of the BritishLibrary, London.

The Mime Review. April 1939. From the collections of the British Library,London.

228

IV. Hand Programmes:

Nihon-Geki-Kyôkai. Bibliothéque de l’Arsénal. Rondel Re 2407 (2).

Jooss 1937. Souvenir Book of the Third American Tour. William SeymourCollection/Princeton University Library.

Decroux 1937. Bec dans l’eau. Hand Programme. Bibliothéque de l’Arsénal.G.F.I (25).

V. Other Written Materials:

Typewritten Note autobiographique which Decroux adressed to AndréVeinstein. Bibliothéque de l’Arsénal (RO 11.579).

VI. Film and Video:

Les Enfants du Paradis. Film. Directed by Marcel Carné. S.N Pathé Cinéma.Paris, France 1945.

Corporeal Mime. Videotape. Yves Lebreton and Odin Teatret. Holstebro,Denmark. Collections of the Central Library of Theatre and Dance. TheatreAcademy. Helsinki, Finland.

VII. Interviews:

Ms. Riitta Pasanen. Student of Étienne Decroux. Interview by MarjaanaKurkinen 26.2.1992. Helsinki, Finland.

i

Appendix 1

A Brief History of Mime and Pantomime: Tightroping between the

Serious and the Grotesque

The first European mime plays trace back to 581 B.C. Written documents appear one

hundred years later1. These early mimes were folk comedies written in dialect, and they

combined music, dance and acrobatics with dialogue2. They were not mime performances

in the present sense of the word. Their role in the history of mime derives mainly from the

word 'mimos', and there are writers who insist on excluding these grotesque and profane

comedies from the history of mime altogether3.

Mime as a non-verbal art which relied mainly on corporeal expression of the performer,

emerged in Ancient Rome. However, it seems that also performances called 'mimus'

continued. The word 'pantomimus' was created for the new art form. Allardyce Nicoll

describes the genre as Aart of interpretative dancing@, which was favoured more by nobility

than the masses4. The birth of Roman pantomime took place around 240 B.C. Its origins

are, indeed, in dance drama, which transformed to a form in which a pantomimus danced

or mimed a story told by a narrator5. Typical source materials for ancient Roman

pantomime were various myths and legends

Nicoll writes that performers of ancient Roman pantomime were compared to tragedy

actors, only they were considered more versatile

- - it seems probable that, whereas the mimic treatment must have been almost always of a

burlesque kind, the pantomimic treatment was almost always serious.6

1 Nicoll 1931, 41

2 Hugounet 1889, 12; Nicoll 1931, 78

3 Verriest-Lefert 1974, 111

4 Nicoll 1931, 133

5 Hugounet 1889, 13-15

6 Nicoll 1931, 133

ii

There is limited amount of documentation of mime performances between the Roman

period and 18th century. It can be assumed, that in medieval Europe, mime was a natural

way to convey biblical legends in multi-lingual environment. During the Renaissance,

eloquent corporeal expression must have been an asset for commedia dell'arte companies,

which toured both multi-dialectic Italian peninsula and other European countries7.

Elizabethan dumb shows are a chapter by themselves. Like in commedia dell'arte, non-

verbal sections were used as a part of play in the Elizabethan theatre. In commedia

dell'arte, the use of mime was most common in comic interludes named lazzi and in

episodes, in which actors pretended to be in darkness8. In the Elizabethan theatre, dumb

shows were used in various ways. Murder scenes, stately occasions, and magic or

supernatural apparitions were commonly expressed by a dumb show9. Unlike Italian

intermedii, dumb shows are found almost exclusively in serious plays10. This is another

interesting example of parallel currents of the serious and the comic in the history of mime.

In 18th century, ancient Roman pantomime was revived both in England and in France.

Already in 1702, the English dance master John Weaver called his works pantomimes. The

themes of Weaver=s compositions originate from Greco-Roman myths. 'Love of Mars and

Venus' (1716) was the most popular of his works. Weaver also wrote his theories in 'The

History of Mimes and Pantomimes', which was published in 1728. In this book, Weaver

considers his own pantomime superior and closer to the ancient Roman tradition than the

other contemporary British 'Dramatick Entertainments consisting of Dancing, Gesture and

Action intermix'd with Trick and Show'11. However, in his opinion, even these are closer to

the ancient Roman tradition than performances of visiting Italian groups, which were using

7 Scott 1977, 13

8 Scott 1977, 14

9 Mehl 1982, 22-25

10 Mehl 1982, xii

11 Weaver 1728, 3

iii

pantomime only as a part of their performances. The English experiments were at least

'Representations of entire stories carried on by various Notions, Action and dumb show'12.

Weaver was clearly concerned about pantomime's seriousness as an art. Revival of ancient

Roman pantomime was a way to bring serious topics back to the theatre13. He also

attempted to clarify the concepts of 'serious' and 'grotesque', and thought that the

difference is not in the use of tragic comic elements but in the use of characters. In serious

theatre, the heroes are natural, like gods. In grotesque theatre they are artificial, like

Harlequin, Colombina or Pierrot14.

The French Jean Georges Noverre followed same paths as Weaver in England slightly

later, at the end of 18th century. His theories were in alignment with the wider neoclassicist

movement. It is surprising, that Noverre does not refer to Weaver's work, of which he must

have had some knowledge, because of his own frequent stays and studies in England15. He

sees himself as the first person to revive the ancient Roman pantomime16.

Noverre's views on ancient Roman pantomime are ambiguous. There is appreciation but

also some amount of criticism, because he sees that this pantomime was not based on

dance, but on conventional gestures, which spectators were able to decipher, because they

were trained to non-verbal language at special schools or institutions17. Key concept behind

Noverre's gestures is >soul=. This is the base of his own 'danse pantomime ou en action'18.

Tragic themes suit best for an art which aims to express areas which do not yeld to verbal

12 Weaver 1728, 4

13 Weaver 1728, 5-6. It should be noted that Weaver, in spite of advocating serious pantomime, does write also about comic pantomimes - and he did compose some himself.

14 Weaver 1728, 56

15 Noverre 1952, 12

16 Noverre 1952, 44. Also in Noverre, Ballet Pantomime in Rolfe 1981, 55. From the point of view of the mime in 1930's, it is interesting that the English translation of Noverre's 1809 'Lettres sur les arts imitateurs en général et sur la danse en particulier' was published in 1930.

17 Noverre 1952, 15-16, 43

18 Noverre 1952, 37. The names used by Noverre vary: ballet héroï -pantomime, ballet en action,

ballet pantomime, etc.

iv

expression19. Like Weaver, Noverre used both tragic and comic topics20, but resolutely

avoided the commedia dell'arte tradition. Noverre's influence in ballet was considerable,

but his art remained a treat of small circles. It was never the kind of popular entertainment

as 19th century pantomime would be.

Speechless performances based on the commedia dell'arte and other popular

entertainment tradition emerged in the first decades of 19th century, partially because of

restrictions imposed on the use of speech21. Talent and popularity of the mime Jean

Gaspard Deburau was, however, the most important factor in this development.

Performances of the Théâtre des Funambules were a mixture of popular theatre forms.

Important for Deburau's own development was 'pantomime sautante', 'une intrigue mêlée

aux excercises du corps'22, in which the performers were dressed up as commedia dell'arte

characters. Deburau excelled23 as Pierrot, or Baptiste, as this character was also called.

Deburau developed Baptiste from a simple glutton to a multi-dimensional clown, which

has been characterised as sarcastic and sentimental24or intellectual, psychological, and

satirical25. His clown appealed to a very wide audience. Deburau has sometimes been

described as a hero of lower classes, which made the aristocrats laughable26, but this is too

simplified. His scenarios and audience appeal prove that the butt of his jokes covered all

strata of society27.

19 Noverre 1809, 21

20 Noverre 1952, 85.

21 The tradition of restrictions goes back to 17th century, and was used against the highly popular Italian groups in France. However, there is no indication that these restrictions would have created an independent mime or pantomime.

22 Janin 1832, 81

23 Storey 1978, MMM 1/3, 174

24 Disher 1925, 135

25 Dick 1960, 184

26 Felner 1985, 31

27 Comparisons to Chaplin have been made, not without reason. Paseková 1986, Ballett International, 14.

v

Pondering the relation between the serious and the comic was not relevant for performers

of the Funambules theatre. Their shows were created for public entertainment. Nor left

Deburau behind any deep theories on the essence of mime. These theories and legends

were created by others, for example by Deburau=s contemporaries Jules Janin, Théophile

Gautier, and other writers and artists later in 19th century. The question on seriousness

emerged only after Deburau's death, as a call for new content and ideology for pantomime,

promoted by Jules Champfleury28.

Champfleury's first pantomime for the Funambules, 'Pierrot, valet de la mort', aimed to

show that Al'homme spirituel transcending his physical infirmities and moral limitations

was taken seriously"29. His second pantomime was charcterised as "instructive, philosophic

and worthy of the complete attention of serious people"30, and later his work veered clearly

toward realism à la Balzac. Pierrot stayed in the realistic pantomimes, but his muteness

and traditional white face had to be justified with some feasible reason31.

Pierrot pantomime survived until 187932. However, its revival took place in less than a

decade, in 1888, when le Cercle Funambulesque was founded33. The Cercle

Funambulesque consisted of artists and writers, among them Felix Lecher, Paul

Margueritte, Raoul de Najac, Jules Champfleury and Paul Legrand. Their goals were to

revive the classic pantomime, to support new pantomime and to stage old market theatre,

improvised comedies and Italian comedy, as well as, eventually, to stage new comedies,

which would adhere to old Italian comedy or to commedia dell'arte tradition34.

28 Striker 1984, 50

29 Striker 1984, 51

30 Striker 1988, 53

31 The muteness of Pierrot character was not absolute, there is evidence of occasional utterances by the various Pierrots. Deburau himself, however, is known to have spoken in only one play at the Funambules. Storey 1978, MMM 1/3, 174-175.

32 Hugounet 1889, 185

33 In some sense this kind of a loose group, fascinated about pantomime, had existed some

decades earlier, in late 1850s, when Deburau=s successor Paul Legrand inspired a whole range of artists to writing plays which mostly fitted to the category of >realistic pantomime= (Storey 1985, 65-66). Champleury was thus just one of the representatives of this group.

34 Hugounet 1889, 238; Bergman 1966, 61

vi

It must be said that the work of le Cercle was more revivalist than renovative35.

Combining music to mime was one of the rare aesthetic renovations considered by the

group. In this "pantomime à la note", music would be the subordinate element36 which

would mainly help the audience to follow the plot37.

Le Cercle Funambulesque staged eight performances with a total of twenty seven pieces

in 1888-1890. Two thirds of the pieces used traditional, commedia dell'arte-based,

pantomime characters38. Pantomimes promoted by the group were classified into four main

categories: melodramatic, realistic, fantastic (féerique) and romantic39. Tragic themes were

rare, although there were members in the group, for example Paul Margueritte, who longed

for the serious element:

- - the cheerful Pierrot has seen his day. - - I want no more of that. - - As for me, I have

conceived a tragic Pierrot. - - Tragic because he's afraid, he is in terror, crime, anguish.40

Not surprisingly, Marguerittes pantomimes, which had such titles as 'Pierrot assassin de sa

femme', have also been characterised as 'macabre'.41

The Cercle was not an unanimous group. Margueritte was the leader of the romantics, who

wished to simplify the language of pantomime and liberate it from conventional gestures,

whereas the classicists, among them Paul Hugounet, wanted above all to respect the

traditions42. However, Pierrot turned out to be a flexible character and, interestingly

enough, in 1890's, the advocates of both symbolist and naturalistic theatre found

35 Dick 1960, 178.

36 Hugounet 1892, 15.

37 de Najac 1981, 67.

38 Rolfe 1978, 148.

39 Hugounet 1889, 238.

40 Margueritte 1981, 69.

41 Storey 1978, 177.

42 Rolfe 1978, 147.

vii

pantomime useful for their artistic purposes. For naturalists, it was a way to express

sentiments, which could not be expressed by words. For symbolists, pantomime was a

medium which could veer towards fantasy and also involve the audience in a very special

way43.

The 'Magic Century of French Mime'44, from Deburau's first Pierrot performance until the

early 1920's when Severin's45last performances took place, was irrevocably over. There

were no efforts to renovate the art during the first decades of 20th century, and it remained

as variety and music hall entertainment, in which the notorious demi-mondes often

performed. The plays were usually speechless parodies of popular melodramas46.

The driving force behind this type of entertainment was Georges Wague, who had been a

member of the Cercle Funambulesque. Wague also developed 'cantomimes' in which

popular songs were mimed as the song was sung47. However, Wague had also aesthetic

ambitions: he called his mime 'mime d'inspiration' or d'instinct', which was opposed to

'mime d'école', the mime which based on the use of conventional gesture. His principles,

with their emphasis on connection between gesture and thought, bear some resemblance to

Noverre's theories. In 1916, Wague started teaching mime at both the Opéra and at the

Conservatoire48 thus bringing mime into respectable theatre training. And it seems that,

after World War I, some individuals voiced their concern about the disappearance of the

art, and called for a wider curriculum in mime at the Conservatoire:

Il faudrait à notre conservatoire national une classe ouverte à des jeunes gens étudiant plus

spécialement la pantomime - - Le diplôme d'un mime devrait valoir celui d'un flûtiste, d'une

cantatrice ou du plus vibrant tragédien'49

43 Bergman 1966, 60.

44 Rolfe 1978.

45 Often called 'the last of the Pierrots'. Clark 1923.

46 Rolfe 1981, 89.

47 Rolfe 1978, 150.

48 Rolfe 1978, 155.

49 Pons 1923, 4.

viii

Thus in the beginning of 20th century, mime became a respectable part of French actor

training. The gap between comic and serious seemed to grow narrower. Yet the inclusion

of mime on the established curricula of the Conservatoire was far from the total corporeal

training introduced at Jacques Copeau's École de Vieux-Colombier in 1920s.

When thinking about the stagnation of mime during the first decades of 20th century, it

should also be remembered that the thriving silent film industry most certainly lured the

best mime talent of these decades50. Perhaps it was not a surprise, that only in the 1930s,

after the sound film had established itself, the next wave of renovation took place.

50 For example Wague played in many filmed melodramas. Some mime pieces were filmed, too, but filmed mime did not turn out popular. Rolfe 1978, 156.

i

Appendix 2

Glossary of Japanese Terminology

If the definition is borrowed, the source of the definition is indicated after each term. The

transliteration system followed in the glossary and the text is the Hepburn system, except

in citations in which the transliteration used in the source is followed. The Japanese names

are written with indicating the person=s surname first.

.aragoto >rough business=; in kabuki, the style of the oversize,

supernatural, rough masculine hero, especially loved in the Edo

area; opposed to wagoto. (Ortolani 1995)

.bugaku >dance-music= or >dance-entertainment=; one of the major genres

of Japanese theatre, introduced from China in the 8th century

A.D. and still performed in a substantially unchanged form.

(Ortolani 1995)

.bunraku popular name for the puppet theatre, derived from the famous

puppeteer Uemura Bunrakuken (1737 - 1810); since the late

18th century this name has in the common use replaced the older

term jÇruri. (Ortolani 1995)

.butÇ post-modern dance genre, with roots in dadaistic and surrealistic

experiments, born to express in a subversive way the feelings of

anguish and terror experienced during the wartime destruction

of Japan. (Ortolani 1995)

.dan-mari mimed sections in kabuki plays; often involving stage fights or

scenes acted in >darkness=.

.dÇ the way, the road, the way of doing things

ii

.Edo the old name for Tokyo, especially referring to the Edo Period

(also called Tokugawa Period after the ruling military family) in

1600 - 1867, the prime time of bunraku and kabuki

.Edo kagura entertainment of, or for the, gods consisting of music dance and

pantomime and performed in the (in this case, in the Tokyo

area) shinto shrines.

.gigaku music and entertainment for Buddhist religious services

imported from South China in early 7th century A.D.

.hana the Flower. The succesfull interaction between the actor and

the audience. >Stage presence=.

.hara the stomach area of the human body.

.Heian period name of a period in Japanese history (794 - 1185, sometimes

counted to 1192 A.D.); the Golden Age of ancient Japanese

culture, predominantly based on the Imperial court in Kyoto; in

the performing arts, bugaku reached its splendor

.iemoto In several traditional Japanese arts, the head of the school. The

iemoto has extensive powers and provides the preservation of

the tradition in his art. (Ortolani 1995)

.jikyÇgen the plays in the kabuki repertoire which are based on dialogue

and action, as opposite to the plays based on dance (see

shosagoto). Sometimes also called jigei.

.jo-ha-kyã originally in gagagu, the musical pattern often translated as

exposition, development and climax. The principle was later

applied especially to nÇ. (Ortolani 1995).

iii

.kabuki traditional form of popular theatre which began at the end of the

16th century, and soon became the most succesful theatre

entertainment in the red light districts of the great cities.

(Ortolani 1995)

.kagura >god music=; the general term for shintÇ music, in which various

rites, dances, and pantomimes were included. (Ortolani 1995)

.kiseru a long-stemmed pipe. Often used by courtesans or old women

characters in kabuki.

.kudoki a technique used in kabuki (origins in bunraku) in which the

onnagata walks/dances on the stage to the accompagniment of

samisen.

.kumadori make-up style created for the aragoto roles in kabuki, based on

strong colour-coded stripes.

.kyÇgen most often the comical form of theatre which developed parallel

to nÇ, and is still performed between the plays of a typical nÇ

performance. (based on Ortolani 1995).

.Meiji period

(1868-1912) historical period named after the Emperor Meiji. The Meiji

restoration marked the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and the

opening and westernisation of Japan. (based on Ortolani 1995)

.Mibu kyÇgen a form of religious (buddhist) theatre, performed at Mibu

temple in Kyoto, in which mime plays an important role.

.mie in kabuki, a pose used in climactic moments.

.ningyÇ-jÇruri puppet theatre based on the interplay of the puppets (ningyÇ)

and the story-telling (jÇruri).

iv

.nÇ one of the forms of the traditional Japanese theatre. Developed

by Kanami and his son Zeami in the fourteenth century in the

sarugaku tradition. (according to Rimer - Masakazu 1984).

.nÇgaku a word indicating both the calssical nÇ and kyÇgen as two facets

of the same tradition. (Ortolani 1995)

.onna kabuki >women kabuki=; from the beginning of the 17th century to 1629

when prohibited by the authorities because of alleged indecency

of its performers, often called-for or real prostitutes (yujÇ, hence

the alternative term yujÇ kabuki); onna kabuki, (according to

Ortolani 1995, 314), Afocused on extravagant and sensual

dances@

.onnagata in kabuki, a male performer of female roles; also called oyama.

(Ortolani 1995).

.shosagoto in kabuki, plays which consist only or primarily of dance (like

Musume DÇjÇji) (Ortolani 1995)

.samisen >three-stringed instrument=; the instrument originally came to

Japan from China over the Southern Islands to and became very

popular in the second half of the 16th century; it first took the

place of the old lute (biwa) in early jÇruri puppet play and then

became the prominent instrument in kabuki music; alternative

transliteration jabisen; usually translittered in English as

shamisen. (Ortolani 1995)

.sarugaku an antecedent of nÇ theatre. Entertainment dating back to Heian

period, with roots in China and Central Asia. Based originally in

acrobatics, songs and dances, later on more dramatic structures.

.sewamono in jÇruri and kabuki, domestic plays, i.e. plays reflecting the

v

life of commoners during the Tokugawa period.

.shimpa new school of drama, a form of theatre which developed after

Meiji restoration as an attempt to westernise the Japanese

drama. (Ortolani 1995)

.shingeki the new theatre movement, which began in 1906 and has

dedicated itself to the ideal of the westernised theatre. (based on

Ortolani 1995).

.shin-sarugaku new sarugaku. Fourished between the second half of the 10th

and the end of the 13th century. Its characteristics, as compared

to the old sarugaku, were an emphasis on monomane (mimicry)

and comic-farcial roles, and its appeal to urban audiences.

(Ortolani 1995).

.shintÇ the way of the gods; the indigenous religion of Japan. (Ortolani

1995).

.shite the chief actor in the nÇ. There is only one such role in each

play. The performer is usually masked, and his costumes are

the most elaborate. (Rimer-Masakazu 1984).

.ShÇwa period (1926-1989); the reign of Emperor Hirohito.

.suriashi the gliding steps in nÇ theatre. The walking style as a whole is

called hakobi.

.tachimawari stage fighting movements. (Ortolani 1995).

.TaishÇ period (1912-1926), named after Emperor TaishÇ.

vi

.wagoto in kabuki, the style of the gentle, soft, romantic male hero,

especially loved in the Kyoto-Osaka area; opposed to aragoto

(Ortolani 1995)

.waki the second most important category of nÇ performers, after the

shite. The waki serves as a foil for the shite and often sets the

scene. He is never masked. (Rimer-Masakazu 1984).

.wasaogi comic pantomime. (Ortolani 1995)

.yãgen in Zeami=s time, a complex principle of literary aesthetics

fashionable at court in judging the beauty of poems. Zeami

applied it, with the meaning of refined elegance, to the

performance of nÇ. In his later writings Zeami gave to the term a

deeper meaning, including a profound, mysterious sense of the

beauty of the universe, and eventually also of the beauty of

human suffering. (Ortolani 1995).

.zen a Japanese school, of 12th century Chinese origin, teaching that

contemplation of one=s essential nature to the exclusion of all

else is the only way of achieving pure enlightment. (Collins

Dictionary of the English Language 1979)